


Bright and Hollow Sky, or, A Very Bad Ship Vicar

by WhenYouGrowUpYourHeartDies



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Anti-Slut Shaming, Attack of the Sudden Plot, Awkward Crush, Awkwardness, BDSM, Byronic Heroes & Heroines, Complete, Cool plot with the smut I swear guys, Crisis of Faith, Cute, Defrocked, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Dildo play, Drama & Romance, Drug trip turns into sex, Drug-Induced Sex, Enthusiastic Consent, Erotic, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Fantasy Turns Real, Feminist, Feminist Themes, Fictional Religion & Theology, Flirting, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, From Sex to Love, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderfluid Character, Genderfuck Character, Genderqueer Character, Gentle Sex, Good BDSM Etiquette, Hair Braiding, Happiest Timeline, Happy Sex, Horny, Hot Mess, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Interrupted Sex, Jerkass Lovers, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Relationship, LGBTQ Themes, Light BDSM, Long, Loss of Faith, Loss of Virginity, Male Vigin, Male Virginity, Massage, Max Becomes the aggressor, Max is a surprisingly great boyfriend, Memory Loss, Mind Meld, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, Minor Angst, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, Older Characters, Oral Sex, Other, Pansexual Character, Pegging, Philosophist Max, Plot Twists, Pre Ending Side Plot, Prostate Orgasm, Quickies, Recreational Drug Use, Religion Kink, Religious Conflict, Rough Sex, Secret Crush, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Positive, Sex Toys, Sexual Play, Sexual Roleplay, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smartass Captain, Smut, Spicy to Sweet, Spoilers, Sweet/Hot, Switch Maximillion DeSoto, Switch The Captain, Switch Vicar Max, Switching, The Captain falls in love for the first time, The Captain has a high libido, The Captain is Hiding a Big Secret, The Captain is an experienced lover, The Captain is cynical turned awkward, The Captain's past comes back to haunt them, The Hermit tricks them into opening up to each other, The Outer Worlds Quest: The Empty Man, Thirsty The Captain, Tricked, Trust Issues, Vaginal Sex, Voice Kink, We're not the best in halcyon, aromantic turns romantic, bdsm play, but we're all it has, gratuitous male body descriptions, hiding relationship, light body dysphoria, loving bdsm, main plot spoilers, mature - Freeform, proper bdsm, reliving old memories, solo play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 215,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21687643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenYouGrowUpYourHeartDies/pseuds/WhenYouGrowUpYourHeartDies
Summary: RATED TRIPLE "X" FOR: exciting, unbelievable, and erotic!Taken directly from the wilds of Halcyon: a runaway heir in a salacious tale of debauchery and thrilling adventure—indeed, it is story that MUST be read to be believed!Although it seems a swashbuckling adventure ripped from the aetherwaves, the tale of the rogue ship The Unreliable is actually the tale of a defrocked and sinful Vicar, a crew made up of Board defying rebels, all not to be outdone by the ship's Captain—a person who is neither woman nor man, who takes over Halcyon with impunity, spreading the seeds of immorality and chaos everywhere they land!But the Captain is not immune to their own failings, for even as they continue to lead a fallen figure of The Great Engineer's plan into greater debauchery, they cannot tame the infernal fire that the illicit relationship awakens. And their greatest fight is yet to come—a test of willpower and devotion to the band of knaves they call their crew!Will they rise to the occasion, or prove that history cannot help but repeat itself?Now completely updated and complete, for your reading pleasure: Bright and Hollow Sky, or, A very Bad Ship Vicar!
Relationships: The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Comments: 122
Kudos: 78





	1. Teaser for Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a weekly updated story and we're going places Private Division ain't even dreamed of! Leave a kudos, leave a comment, feed the author's ego instead of their devastatingly small bank account for lack of a Patreon, then strap in for the DLC you never even knew you craved.
> 
> This is a weekly updated story, so I can revise and clean it to the best of my abilities and not jeopardize my ability to work on my novel (if you're interested in the vertical slice of my abilities that my fan fiction shows, there's a VERY OLD version of my novel I am heavily, HEAVILY revising; there's a link in my profile for that), so subscribe to be reminded when I post on Mondays. Bottom line: it'll be posted till it's finished, and I promise you: you're gonna love this ending. It's a long, emotional, horny, funny, kind of sad, but very warm one, too, if that is your style.
> 
> It fuck definitely is mine.
> 
> \--k.

When Neena had gone to their quarters for the night—with their discarded shirt thrown over the stupid Moon Man grinning at them from the far wall—they were surprised to hear a knock on their door. Even before Neena could cry something out, ADA kindly informed the room’s inhabitant, “Vicar Max is knocking at your door.”

With an only slightly patronizing, “Thank you, ADA,” Neena fetched their shirt from where they had draped it on the spooky, wide-eyed gaze of the Spacer’s Choice mascot and started buttoning it up as they walked to the door. With a sigh, Neena undid the lock, finishing notching the shirt’s buttons midway up as the doors slid open.

Vicar Max stood at the door, looking at first like he was sober. Then Neena noticed the subtle way his gaze wavered more than usual. _A well-salted holy man, how interesting._

“Captain Castillo, I just wanted to—” He stopped, as though his words had been stolen from his mouth. Max’s gaze had dropped, taking in the image of the typically fully dressed Captain, now in a partially buttoned dress shirt. Without any bindings or a minimizing bra, this may have very well been the first time that the man that Neena had rescued from Edgewater had ever seen the girls, even covered, semi-decently, in fabric.

Almost more embarrassed for him, but in no mood to fully button up when they had been ready to relax in privacy for the night, Neena snapped their fingers impatiently at him and said, “Yeah? You interrupted _me_ , Vicar.”

Max shut his eyes and looked up, directly into their eyes. “I just—I wanted to say—” He raised a fist to his mouth, cleared his throat. His face was growing a shade of red, even coloring his large ears, a blush that Neena normally would have been pleased to see on the face of someone who saw their tits. 

Just someone who wasn’t Vicar Max. 

“I’m sorry for my behavior. Back at the bar.”

Neena leaned against their doorway, arms folded over their chest, more as a way of saving the man from his further embarrassment, but also as a way to try to erase the impression of him being a human being with natural human drives. “That’s a first.”

Max’s face creased in annoyance—for a brief moment. Neena was reminded of the foul ranting that he had let out when they had given him the book he had sent them to find—and he said, “I am _more_ than capable of admitting my mistakes. When I do, indeed, make a mistake.”

Neena barely stopped from rolling their eyes. “Well, of course.”

He shook his head, and in a rare moment of vulnerability, said, “I’m just—I know things are different on Earth, but it’s like we’re in a bubble in Halcyon, and even though everything I do is undoubtedly filtered through the Great Equation as I understand it… it doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in getting to know you. Or that I don’t respect you. Immensely, in fact, no matter what you might think. I find you a fascinating subject in how the Great Equation functions.”

 _Immensely?_ That was a first for Neena. Fear, desire, those were emotions they were used to hearing that they engendered in others. Respect, though? And from a holy man whose belief system, as he had already told them in great detail, saw Neena’s rebellious behavior as untamed chaos that was waiting to be met with order? Hearing it from this man, even if he was a repressed, overly constricted person, let Neena know that he was telling the truth. Asshole he may have been, pompous, but Max saw it as a true virtue to be honest. At least, with others.

Even if he was talking about them like they were a science experiment he was keen to continue studying.

And that was the moment when, still tipsy from the wine and with the glass of top shelf whiskey that they had been drinking in their quarters, the Captain of _the Unreliable_ truly saw Max as a man. A viable object, at least, of Neena’s weird lusts.


	2. 1: The Bitter Vicar and the Unreformed Slut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes there's nothing worse than having your expectations completely de-railed.

The first time Neena had spoken to him they had felt immediately certain that they would be glad to never talk to him again. And, as they handed the damned book to the quiet man who sat behind his desk, talking calmly but with what seemed like withheld excitement, Neena felt like very soon they would be walking away with a few more bits in their pockets and would be able to put this representative of such a weird religious movement behind them. Right along with the rest of Edgewater. 

And then Maximillion DeSoto let out a stream of cursing that managed to put even the wild Neena Castillo to shame, and asked if they could take him with them off of the planet. 

In the right mind, they would have turned such a proposition down. If he hadn’t of caught the new Captain of the, at the time, inoperable ship _The Unreliable_ off guard, he might have been left in that church of his, in a number of hours forgotten about. And sure enough, within minutes of walking back into Edgewater with the ex-Vicar of the company town, the man had made his feelings of the situation he had found himself in more than clear to his would-be savior. 

“So—you have _no_ profession to speak of, yet you say you have a _ship_?”

Neena hesitated before they turned to look at him. The truth was far from the right thing to say in a situation like this, and someone like him wouldn’t believe them anyway. Just how close were members of this religion to the Board, the one that Phinneas Welles, in the short time they had spoken to one another, had managed to warn them of?

Already getting more than a little sick of schlepping around Terra 2 and having to do work for what felt like everybody who needed something done, they said, in their usual sardonic manner, “So the A.I tells me.” They had already gotten the impression that the unemployed were viewed here much like rabid dogs.

But even knowing that he would likely not approve of their new lifestyle, they had yet to discover just how unlikeable the Vicar was. 

“I just—I find it so hard to believe. Not that I want to question what’s made my potential good luck of being able to get off of this hellpit possible, but it’s just… wow.”

Neena stopped. So far they had been doing great at repressing that passion that they had once been known for—were notorious for. Waking up to some of the most unusual series of events that Neena was sure had—ever—happened had managed to put them in the uncharacteristic position of not being so hasty to jump to conclusions. Like, _Hey, did this guy unthaw me and kidnap me just to do his dirty work?_ , and, a good follow up question, _Can I turn this schmuck in for a paycheck?_

But the thought that had been bright in their mind, from the moment they had met the snarky, pretentious asshole in blue-purple vestments, rose in Neena and then came out of their mouth. “Got something you want to tell me, holy man?”

Almost surprising was the way that he caught onto the connotation of what Neena said, quickly. His gaze narrowed at them and his arms met over his chest. “I get the feeling that there’s more than a little derision in how you said that title, young lady.”

Neena had stopped walking, was now turned to look at the man. “First of all: watch the condescending tone. Secondly, I am not a kid. And I’m not a lady.” They finished it up with a scowl, fingers itching to curl into a fist and knock some of this guy’s perfect teeth out. “If we’re going to ride together—a _big_ if, still—you’re going to get those two things very clear. And quickly.”

He blinked, surprise lighting his eyes up as he reached out, a vague show of complacency. “A-alright, forgive me for my poor first impression.” _A little late for that._ “I don’t mean to offend, it’s just that it comes naturally to me. I’m sure the Great Equation put us together for a good reason, after all.”

Parvati, who had wisely remained a few feet away from the duo, finally spoke up, her intent to make peace obvious. “It’s alright, Neena’s just not used to how you Vicars are.” She hesitated, then added, “I don’t rightly know how you guys act, anyhow. I’ve only ever known Vicar DeSoto as a representative member of the OSI.”

Max turned, looked at the sweet engineer and said, “That does not surprise me. The only culture this place gets is in the bacteria strain that’s in whatever they’re putting in the Saltuna.” He finished with a sneer.

Neena had only known the young woman for a few hours, but up against this so-called moral ambassador they knew how they felt about both when they compared them. Just stopping short of giving into their first instinct, which was shoving the man to the ground, Neena pointed at him and said, “Do not condescend to her. I can leave you here to get the plague, or maybe you’ll end up having to give a fucking sermon every week for the rest of your cynical, worthless life to these _yokels_. How’s that sound?”

Max’s gaze hardened, it was obvious to Neena that he wanted to say something. Then the expression in his eyes changed, his adam’s apple jumping behind the gold-lined collar of his vestments. “Fine, whatever you say, _Captain Castillo_. Or is it Hawthorne? But by the Law, I was not deriding the girl, in spite of what you may think. If anything, I believe Parvati to be the best hope this place has for anything resembling forward movement, away from the bizarre dark age that everyone here has succumbed to.”

Neena scoffed, eyeing this town’s poor excuse for moral guidance up. “From my experience, a zealous idiot in dumb robes isn’t the best person to talk about evolution from the dark ages.”

That early argument seemed to set the tone for much of their initial relationship.

* * *

If the thought had ever occurred to them, Neena would have scoffed it away. _Of course the good, stuck-up Vicar would never want anything to do with a whiskey drinking party animal like me._ He had already made it more than a point of contention between them that Neena’s behavior, wild, brutally honest, if leaning on the side of fiercely protective of their crew members and the underprivileged, was something that was inappropriate for the Captain of a ship to have. Or perhaps the Vicar just didn’t see other people as worthy of him trying to help.

Neena always hated edgelord cynics more than even the eternally over-optimistic. Or for that matter, someone who fell for the prosperity logical fallacy. _The only way to succeed is to be worthy of it, the only way to be worthy is to be successful in succeeding._ Sounded like garbage that their own family had once believed in.

In fact, the only person who might have ever existed to make Neena look less like a mess to the man by sheer comparison might have been Nyoka. And they didn’t exactly endear themselves to the sensibilities of the self-professed, “sole grown-up” aboard the Unreliable, besides _not_ happening to be the biggest train wreck aboard the ship. Even though he hadn’t been around before Neena had been frozen, when they had made it a life goal to screw anything—anyone—their heart demanded.

Wouldn’t that have been a _treat_ , getting a, “congratulations on not being such a slut” head pat from the ship’s answer to virtuous behavior?

Instead of trying to mend their relationship, Neena scoffed off any attempt the man had made at sermonizing his religion to them. It seemed like the man keyed in immediately without a word being need said that Neena once wasn’t the type of person who would turn down a one night stand with anyone they wanted, just because it happened to offend the good, upstanding people of Halcyon's puritanical beliefs and their relatively new religious movement. 

Might have had something to do with Neena tossing back a drink of whiskey as they tried to shake off a fresh bullet wound by throwing their head back and yelling, “God, that feels better than getting railed in a dirty hotel room!”

How the Vicar had turned an almost apple shade of red that day.

And what was worse, for as forward and downright arrogant as the man was about how his belief system was the one that allowed the universe to make sense, Neena made it a point to continue to disregard and counter everything he said in their presence. After all, the Captain of _The Unreliable_ wasn’t the type who had much use for old school determinism dressed up in cultish dressing, as well as having a very short amount of patience in general. 

It had all lead to more than one heated discussion, once even while they were camped out behind some cover, waiting to count how many raiders were assembled at a road block before they could descend on them, raining down hellfire.

The problem—never—was that Neena wasn’t attracted to him. _Of course_ Neena would have at least gone for a strange romp, even with the ever-spooky quiet, older man who hung out in his room, reading all day or trying to give people mostly unwanted counseling to admit their bad behavior to him in order to save themselves from straying too far from his Engineer's great plan, all Board certified. 

The problem with Neena was that they often found it hard to _not_ want to jump the bones of someone who had an interesting personality, was ready, willing, able. They had to have a pulse. And they weren’t interested in anything like a long term commitment, beyond much more than a series of flings, with the right person. Didn’t hurt if they were hot, either. Although Neena had interesting concepts of what that entailed.

And they had gone, in the time since being de-frosted, into a state of self-imposed chastity. Which was starting to make them _crazy_.

Once upon a time, someone had “diagnosed” them as possessing an overactive libido. Years out on their own had taught Neena a number of things; one of which was that if someone couldn’t find the joy in sex, especially with them, then that was their issue, not Neena's. Of course, it was all within reason; even a slut like Neena had standards, didn’t seek out people who already had a partner, for example. At least, _nowadays_ , as the Captain of _The Unreliable_ , they had standards, a reputation as one of the saviors of the Hope. Also helped that they really didn’t have time to test out some of these future people, or possess a desire to deal with their expected, heavy baggage.

And even the hypothetical idea, of ending up having to live in a ship with a man whom they had screwed, especially a “violently enthusiastic” man of the cloth, was a thought that Neena decided was an unappealing one.

Still, the Captain knew better than to ever say _never_ —at least, they once did. 

Before they had gone into cryostasis and woke up as the last hope of a colony ship, they had only gotten into the Hope, a colony of super scientists and the elite, because they needed someone to dig ditches and clean the damn toilets. Who better than someone trying to find themselves, hopefully as far away from people they fucked up—literally and figuratively? 

They knew that they happened to be the first person awoken by Phineas Welles, not because they were the most skilled or desired, but because it was probably a good idea to start any science experiment with an expendable subject; at least, when the possibility of killing said subject was on the table. Neena’s mother couldn't have put the concept any better. They were the first to be used, right after the Cystipig trials.

And, unfortunately for the Halcyon system, they were the _only_ person, thus far, to have been successfully raised from the dead. 

Which was how they ended up being the Captain of a ship and the instrument of a mad scientist. As well as currently in the company of Vicar Maximillion DeSoto.

At least Neena had the uncharacteristic class to not call the rogue scientist out on his promise that they were his “perfect specimen” and the best hope the colony had. As if. 

Neena knew more than anyone that if things had gone just a bit differently back on the Earth, that the planners for the colony may have found less of an ideal candidate to be a borderline servant for the Halcyon colony and more of a troublemaker with a record of brawling, sneaking into places they weren’t supposed to be, and with no small amount of lovers in the past who ended up getting Neena in more trouble with what could politely be called “public indecency”, as well as drug violations and the eventual spats related to Neena ending said relationships. After all, they had gotten help in forging the documents to get them onto the colony ship to begin with. Something Neena had the feeling it wouldn’t exactly endear themselves to certain members of _The Unreliable’s_ crew if they found that out.

How the hell a person that one of their exes, with disturbing accuracy, had called a goon low-rent Oscar Wilde, had come to be in the situation they had found themselves in, was still something that Neena themselves couldn’t comprehend. A person, used to communicating almost solely through sarcasm and euphemism, somehow found the sobering reality of hundreds of lives in the balance to be something that allowed them to, it would seem, finally grow up. Or at least be less prone to flashing or punching people with impunity.

It was due to an unbelievable string of their good luck, or, depending on Neena’s mood, they may have readily admitted, a lot of it had something to do with the aforementioned cuckoos who had strangely placed their trust in the savior of the Hope Colony. Which was funny, given the fact that Neena had never been good at making “friends”, had always considered themselves to not be good at playing with others when it was anything that didn’t involve fucking or fighting, the two big “fs” in their life.

So, even months into the adventure, Neena never noticed that there was something strange about Maximillion DeSoto; beyond the obvious to Neena fact that there was a hidden, tortured soul in him that they had the inkling was a sign of a person infinitely more fun that the joykill that wore those blue-purple vestments. Not that they made much of an effort to get to know the man, as opposite as their personalities were. They avoided each other like the Edgewater plague on ship when they could for the first few days, and out together they butted heads, hard. 

Still, Neena’s best guess was that the man that Max pretended not to be, and may as well of been killed, had lived probably sometime when the older man had been a jailhouse Vicar. Lord, but sometimes when Neena was dealing with the Vicar they wished they were instead talking to _that_ guy, the one who had been used to dealing with inmates. He surely couldn’t have been more of a painful buzzkill than this man was.

* * *

For some time, things seemed… semi normal? 

Until, on Groundbreaker, when Max again showed his ass. It was a pity; the two had been getting close to starting to see eye to eye, if mostly because Neena was more interested in snorting off the downright poisonous commentary the Vicar kept espousing, and had started to find him oddly comforting as a presence, like he was a devil to counter Pavarti’s naivete and kindness. 

The irony that the man’s title and his actual personality were as opposed as the respect people showed them never failed to strike Neena as _funny_. The type of funny where you watch someone fall down and drop their ice cream cone onto the grass. And then get run over by a truck.

Neena had sent Parvati off to buy the wine she and Max had decided sounded like the best choice for the girl to drink in the Lost Hope. This was all ultimately the method that the young woman herself had chosen to deal with her obvious romantic nerves, one that Neena was willing to indulge in, only partially because it would give them a rare excuse to drink. As the Captain of _The Unreliable_ sat back at the table they had picked, far away from the usual workers who spent their time off in the bar, their obviously bad choice in companionship spoke up.

“I must admit, there has been something I’ve been pondering about you.”

Neena fought the urge to throw their head back and groan. By this point, admittedly, he had stuck to mostly annoying the piss out of the youngest members of the crew. Hopefully he had a sense of how close he was to getting decked in the head by them or Nyoka if he pressed his luck with either. But Neena knew that their reprieve from Max’s need to parse everything out until he had killed any fun there was to be had in a subject was sure to come back to them, one way or the other. 

Looking at him with their patented sly grin, Neena said, “Well then, Maximillan, tell me what it is that you’ve been _pondering_.”

Was that a blush on his face? “I’ve heard about people—people like you, and I guess I was wondering: if you’re biologically a woman, but you dress like a man, but you don’t call yourself either, then... what are you?”

Neena glared at the man. Normally questions like this never bothered them. If someone asked, it seemed to them that at least the person cared enough to want to learn about Neena. But they could already guess that, with this conversation—with a man obsessed with absolutes, dealt in blacks and whites unless it suited him, and derided whatever didn’t fit into the small shoebox he imagined the universe was—they could imagine where he would take this line of talk. After all, Neena was pure uncertainty, the definition of a lack of binary.

Leaning closer to him across the table, Neena said, “I’m both. I’m neither. I’m whoever the fuck I want to be.” They grinned at him, a challenge on their face. _C’mon, finally make me hit you._ It would have been a wonderful outlet for their growing frustrations.

They had expected the man to back down, but they should have counted on the Vicar to never leave well enough alone. Without missing a beat, he said, “I was curious as to what titles you prefer to go by. Forgive me if I’m pressing you and you’re uncomfortable with my line of questioning. I’m just trying to comprehend the logistics of adopting such a persona—”

Neena, who had turned to fix their stare on the woman who was was still trying to work up the courage to order the wine, snapped out, “It’s not a _persona_ , love. It’s more than a bit rude to press someone who’s spent their entire life realizing who they are, asking how their parts work. I have the good taste to not ask you how your love life is, _Vicar_.”

They saw it out of the corner of their eye; Max jerked back in his seat as if they had slapped him, muddy green eyes wide. He cleared his throat, and stuttering, he said, “I beg your—I was _not_ asking about how you have _intercourse_! I was more interested in how you—that is to say—your choice of pronouns—”

Wherever the conversation was going—if it was ever going to end somewhere that did not involve Neena pressing whatever was on hand that had a blade to the good Vicar’s throat and warning him to shut his fucking mouth—it was ended when the obviously nervous Parvati returned with a bottle of wine and three glasses.

 _Yee-haw_. Neena put on their most hospitable grin, relieved when it made Pavarti blush in that way that she did whenever Neena put the charm on for her. As long as the woman was near, Neena wasn’t about to shove the uptight bully’s face into the mud like he so justly deserved. At least, not tonight.

* * *

When Neena had gone to their quarters for the night—with their discarded shirt thrown over the stupid Moon Man grinning at them from the far wall—they were surprised to hear a knock on their door. Even before Neena could cry something out, ADA kindly informed the room’s inhabitant, “Vicar Max is knocking at your door.”

With an only slightly patronizing, “Thank you, ADA,” Neena fetched their shirt from where they had draped it on the spooky, wide-eyed gaze of the Spacer’s Choice mascot and started buttoning it up as they walked to the door. With a sigh, Neena undid the lock she had placed on the doors, finishing notching the shirt’s buttons midway up as the doors slid open.

Vicar Max stood at the doorway, looking at first like he was sober, then Neena noticed the subtle way his gaze wavered more than usual. _A well-salted holy man, how interesting._

“Captain Castillo, I just wanted to—” He stopped, as though his words had been stolen from his mouth. Max’s gaze dropped, taking in the image of the typically fully dressed Captain, now in a partially buttoned dress shirt. Without any bindings or a minimizing bra, this may have very well been the first time that the man that Neena had rescued from Edgewater had ever seen the girls, even covered, semi-decently, in fabric.

Almost more embarrassed for him, but in no mood to fully button up when they had been ready to relax in privacy for the night, Neena snapped her fingers impatiently at him and said, “Yeah? You interrupted _me_ , Vicar.”

Max shut his eyes and looked up, directly into their eyes. “I just—I wanted to say—” He raised a fist to his mouth, cleared his throat. His face was growing a shade of red, even coloring his large ears, a blush that Neena normally would have been pleased to see on the face of someone who saw their tits. 

Just someone who wasn’t Vicar Max. 

“I’m sorry for my behavior. Back at the bar.”

Neena leaned against their doorway, arms folded over their chest, more as a way of saving the man from his further embarrassment, but also as a way to try to erase the impression of him being a human being with natural human drives. “That’s a first.”

Max’s face creased in annoyance—for a brief moment. Neena was reminded of the foul ranting that he had let out when they had given him the book he had sent them to find—and he said, “I am _more_ than capable of admitting my mistakes. When I do, indeed, make a mistake.”

Neena barely stopped from rolling their eyes. “Well, of course.”

He shook his head, and in a rare moment of vulnerability, said, “I’m just—I know things are different on Earth, but it’s like we’re in a bubble in Halcyon, and even though everything I do is undoubtedly filtered through the Great Equation as I understand it… it doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in getting to know you. Or that I don’t respect you. Immensely, in fact, no matter what you might think. I find you a fascinating subject in how the Great Equation functions.”

 _Immensely?_ That was a first for Neena. Fear, desire, those were emotions they were used to hearing that they engendered in others. Respect, though? And from a holy man whose belief system, as he had already told them in great detail, saw Neena’s rebellious behavior as untamed chaos that was waiting to be met with order? Hearing it from this man, even if he was a repressed, overly constricted person, let Neena know that he was telling the truth. Asshole he may have been, pompous, but Max saw it as a true virtue to be honest. At least, with others.

Even if he was talking about them like they were a science experiment he was keen to continue studying.

And that was the moment when, still tipsy from the wine and with the glass of top shelf whiskey that they had been drinking in their quarters, the Captain of _The Unreliable_ truly saw Max as a man. A viable object, at least, of Neena’s weird lusts.

So when Neena dropped their arms and looked at the man, a genuine smile on their face, it was the closest that they had ever felt to wanting to hug the holy man. Didn’t stop them from teasing him, especially given the fact that they were crabby from being bothered. “Aww. I’ll keep that in mind the next time you try to tell me that I’m a broken image of the universe’s grand master plan.”

Max let out an offended scoff. “Neena, I didn’t come here seeking to fight with you—”

Maybe due to the booze or the unintentional effects of not having been intimate with another person far longer than they would have liked, Neena leaned over and, thoughtlessly, pecked Max on the cheek and patted him on the shoulder. 

That’s when Neena realized that besides the industrial grade soap that the real Captain Hawthorne had stowed in bulk that they all used, Max smelled strangely heady, masculine, with a subtle burst of tasteful cologne. Thankfully, it seemed, not made with Rapt musk.

It made Neena jerk back faster than they might otherwise have, although the personal touch was something that they almost immediately regretted doing. A grin stretched across their face that was overdoing it, double duty to hide the sinking feeling that had grown in the pit of Neena’s stomach. 

It was Max that spoke. “Right, um, good.” Were they just imagining it, or was it not just the booze that had stolen the man’s usual eloquence, love of wordiness, especially when it could cut someone else down?

As he turned, starting to leave, Neena, feeling guilty, grabbed onto the door frame and said to the Ship’s Vicar’s back, “If you really need a name for what I am, just call me a—person with a vulva. Or, you know, Captain Amazing.”

Max stopped, then turned around. The look on his face, incredulous and more than a little red, strangely thrilled Neena. Clearing his throat—something he seemed to do, constantly, with them—he said, “I’ll keep that in mind, then. But forgive me if I just shorten it to “Captain”.” Were they imagining it, or was he starting to smile before he turned away?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, welcome, I'm glad you read this if you were waiting for this since the teaser, but even if you're here for the first time, I am HAPPY to see you! 
> 
> So I decided to write this as I was getting to know Max in the game, but I thought I could push it off. The less obvious a romance is/the less it "sings" to me, esp. fanfic *I* need to write, the more I ignore the drive to write it. Well, post Max's questline, I realized I knew exactly what needed to be the incident that brought the (as I wrote them) stubborn af Captain with the soon to be zen-like ex-holy man. A lot of my favorite ideas come to me like that, OW or, recently, for ff. I LOVE weird romances, esp, between friends/rivals, and I LOVE writing older characters, full of life experiences, quirks, and personal baggage. It is MY yummy.
> 
> This'll be the second piece I'm sharing on this platform. I can write like a demon when I have little distraction, but last month was a distracting month. Money problems, overtime at my work during the WORST time, post-launch of a broken system that has infuriated most of the clients my company works for, and I've been trying to do some deep cleaning of my dwelling. It doesn't need to be said, but being an adult: yeah, it fucking sucks.
> 
> This is going to be a long journey, if you'll take it with me. After my last story with a trans woman as a main character, I decided to try sharing a non-binary/genderqueer person for the first time, write from my own experience; at least, where being nonbinary is! I wish I was as cool as Neena Castillo, but the hazards of being as hard and spiny as a cactus come with their own problems, as we'll see. 
> 
> I'm interested in hearing what you think of my depiction of the Savior of the Hope and their unwanted moral authority in the form of Maximillion DeSoto, especially as I keep writing, so leave a comment whenever sometimes strikes you, good or bad. I end up using ff as a board to focus mainly on character work, which... I don't know, that tends to be what I like to read, myself.
> 
> And on top of leaving a comment, I would appreciate it, since you've read this far, leaving kudos as well. I'll be honest and say that I write ff first for myself, but I share it because I like to imagine other people like it. If I get the impression I'm not leaving much of an impact or just royally fucking something up with the whole concept and way I do this, I might as well work on my OW. I have a whole project I SHOULD be working on, but I promised myself that I would finish writing this 30 chapter sprawling send up of my love of this pairing, in a game that has NO romance options so I could tell Private Division once and for all, "there, I fixed it for you". 
> 
> On that note, hope you guys liked it. I work on these on my own with no feedback, I don't have an editor or even a beta reader because I really need to, again, be saving that energy for my OW. Every time I re-read these old chapters I get the feeling I screwed something up, so if you could confirm whether or not something is working as you read it, I would most surely appreciate it. I really don't have a thin skin, I am already a practicing writer and I push my ego totally out of this stuff. Blah blah blah. 
> 
> Hope the new year's good for you guys. May all your weird pairing dreams come true!
> 
> \----k.


	3. 2. Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am a passenger,  
> and I ride and I ride  
> I ride through the city's backside;  
> I see the stars come out of the sky.  
> Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky.  
> You know it looks so good tonight.

They were in that little town that Sublight owned, a place that was indeed strangely romantic beneath the shade of the carved out mountain overhead—in spite of the overwhelming reek of sulfur in the air, which, as promised by Nyoka, they had all begun to get accustomed to. Mostly. 

Neena had been on the way over to the bungalow they had decided to rent, and only when they entered did they realize that this place was a bust if it were to be used by the three who had come here on foot. Unless the Captain meant to share the bed with the two who had followed them.

Somehow, they didn’t think that at _least_ one of the two people they had brought along would be keen on a three-person snuggle that night.

Smacking their head with their hand, Neena felt immediate regret for paying Sublight even a single bit for a room that they couldn’t use. “Think I saw a place to park the ship back a ways.”, they muttered for the benefit of their two companions. As they walked out of the small rented room, Neena found themselves being touched on the arm by the man that they had been trying, for the past week, to forget that they had fantasized about. 

“Captain, I think my man is here, further down that river.” Vicar Max motioned to the waterfall and river that sat about fifteen feet from the bungalow. 

_Gotta get this over, and the sooner I give this man what he wants the sooner I can be free of him._ That had started to become a major desire for them. Push him out of their personal life, maybe even give him a reason to leave the ship for good. They were fuck at saying good bye, but they were worse at trying to keep even a relationship like a friendship sustained.

With a sigh, Neena nodded, turning to Nyoka. “Go hail ADA, tell her to park over there. I’m gonna go take care of something with the Vicar.” Once Nyoka had left with an odd look on her face that they had to fight the urge to want to question, Neena nodded to her companion and said, “Well? Let’s go talk to your sage expert.”

In the month and some change they had spent living on _The Unreliable_ , rarely doing clean jobs with most of the work indeed dirty for various factions that existed in Halcyon, Neena barely noticed that their bickering with the holy man that had before been a near constant with him had become reduced to the two engaging in verbal sparring in a way that Parvati had once referred to as being like they were close friends who happened to believe in two very different things. Strange, but then again, Neena knew they were far from the right person to explain what constituted a “friendship”.

But whatever it is that they had begun to feel for each other, Vicar Max seemed relieved to have the Captain of _The Unreliable_ to accompany him as he walked with Neena past clueless people complaining about the accommodations they were trying to use on this dangerous planet as well as people panning for gold in the river, walking past all of them as they waded through the water channel until they found a man with some makeshift camping set up at the end of the river, ending in a cement barrier. Oddly, Neena was struck by how this had formed an unintentional dead end. 

And the closest people were pretty far a ways back up the river.

Shaking off that strange impression, Neena hardly noticed how the Vicar was uncharacteristically quiet since they had come into Hollowbrook—not complaining about the smell of the place, telling Neena about something having to do with his religious beliefs. Trying to not so subtly tell Nyoka that she ought to reconsider her choices. It would have been a relief, if Neena wasn’t starting to feel worried for him. As fucked up as that was.

And, well, the man Max had brought them to see was dirty, looked like his camp was made less out of a desire to be close to nature and more because he didn’t have much of a choice but to sleep outside, huddled in a corner of a SubLight town. _Is this guy supposed to be more knowledgeable about this persnickety religion than Max?_

And, adding to that disbelief was how the man snarled as soon as he saw Neena, demanding, “What do you want?”, until, abruptly, Neena was nearly pushed aside by Max, eliciting a stunned reaction from the man that they now supposed was the sage expert. “Oh, hey. Vicar Max? What are you doing on Monarch? I thought Scienticians ain’t welcome here.”

And in the space of seconds, the image, of Max as a strong, almost regal person, the kind that Neena had no right harboring obscene fantasies of, broke into a million tiny pieces, and their memory of the man cursing profanities as though it were his mother tongue returned as the Vicar confronted the filthy man, his voice emanating wrath and sarcasm. “Haven’t you _heard_ ? _Everyone’s_ welcome here, it’s a _fucking worker’s paradise_ . But _you_ wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Neena had to blink and shake their head, as if to confirm that they weren’t dreaming. Just moments before, the Vicar had been quietly telling Neena that this was surely his path to finally understanding his damn equation. And, now, the man sounded more like one of the factory workers back on Earth that Neena had known, pissed off—

“Never worked a day in your miserable life. You’re just a _parasite_ , living off _my_ goodwill. Well, guess what? My goodwill’s _exhausted_ , along with my _temper._ ”

Neena could tell themselves later that it was because of shock, but desire, hot and unwanted, though it was, started low in their belly, sparked off right alongside their horror. “What? What’s this?”

Max answered for them, not bothering to even look at Neena, staring a hole directly through Reginald Chaney. “Oh, _this_ ? _This_ is the guy who told me about the book while we were in prison.” His next words, because Neena had become accustomed to the idea that he wasn’t a proficient liar, shocked them. “I lied about finding a scholar. But I don’t care about any of that anymore. I just want to inflict massive amounts of pain on this guy.” A hard sneer, crueler than any other of its kind that they had ever seen before on his face, had curved a sharp line across the good Vicar’s face.

Neena, shining beacon of a good role model, had to actively struggle to not melt into a stuttering wreck. Again struggling to find the words they wanted to say, Neena, in a higher voice than they would have liked, asked, “V-Vicar? Max, C’mon, buddy, you’re the _reasonable_ one. Gonna throw away all of that stuff you claim to stand by, just to tear some piece of trash open?”

But to their dismay, the holy man didn’t so much as look at Neena, not even acknowledging that they had said a word. He took an alarming step forward, towards Chaney, the size difference between the two men by a matter of inches becoming only more profound, with Chaney hunching over slightly in terror, and Max seeming to grow in size with his rage. 

“Oh, he _knew_ , didn’t you? _Didn’t you?_ ”

Images—of Max in whatever SubLight had for a prison, probably a shooting gallery with a bull’s eye pinned to the back of the good Vicar’s head—crowded Neena’s mind. Max was an asshole, but he was _their_ asshole. 

Neena grabbed onto Max by his shoulder, could feel the answering jolt of surprise in the man’s body from the sudden touch. Hell, this action managed to surprise Neena.

And then the poor bastard opened his mouth and made his situation worse. “Y-you should listen to your girlfriend. O-okay, okay, I admit it. I was tired of your high and mighty speechifyin’ all the time! It was just a _joke_ , I swear, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it!”

Wait. _This_ guy—he screwed Max over?

Answering the immediate question, of how he would react, Max wrenched himself loose from Neena, all of the fire and fury the Captain had heard in the man’s voice alive in his once-sedate green eyes, in the sneer on his face. “See, Neena? I’ve dealt with this _swine_ before. I know how he thinks.”

For a brief moment, Neena thought to themselves, _It’s a very good thing he doesn’t know how_ I _think._

With Neena still staring at Max in shock, the Vicar turned back to his fellow ex-con, and said, “Oh, right, where were we?” His voice raised a few measures in a false cheer. “I was about to beat you. Severely.” He had wrenched himself loose, finally, of his ship Captain’s grasp.

Before Neena could find the brains that had been starved of blood by their gonads, Chaney managed to sputter something out that might save his worthless life. “Wait, wait wait! I know who can translate the book for you!”

Max’s voice returned, hard as iron. “It’s too late for that. I threw away my life chasing fairy tales. Will punishing you fix any of that? Of course not, but _by Law_ , will it make me feel a whole lot better.”

Some part of Neena believed that they had lost the Vicar for good this time. They found themselves considering beating him. To Neena, this guy was nothing more than one of the many lost souls on Monarch, after all. To him, this was a man who whose death at his hands would only prove that he was no better than him.

Maybe they felt that way, protective of him because they had grown to think of him as a friend. Or, maybe, it was because they wanted to— 

Before that thought could land with deathly accuracy, they reached out, grabbing once more onto Max’s clothes. “Can’t we hear him out? You’ve worked so hard to get that book. Wherever this person is, Max, you have my word: we can go see them. If—if he’s lying, he can’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Just look at him.” When he looked back at them, surprise managing for the first time to break through that teeming wall of rage that he had built, Neena added, with uncharacteristic sobriety, “I don’t want to see you throw your life away like this. We all make mistakes, Vicar, but things change.” _Imagine, someone like me telling Max not to throw his life away._ They felt a strange smile, sincere, grow on their mouth at that thought. “If you hadn’t been in Edgewater, none of us would have met. You wouldn’t have been there for Parvati, or helped Felix feel more at home in the ship. We never would have known each other, I wouldn’t have had you save my life all of those times you did.” Realizing how undeniably sappy they sounded, Neena followed that up with, “Well, I saved your life more than you saved mine, you insufferable loudmouth.” They coughed, looked away from him.

At first they thought that Max was just going to throw their hand off of him, then go back to spitting his long withheld anger at the man he said was the source of his pain. Maybe worse. Then Max surprised Neena as they seemed to witness the rage monster that lived inside of the Vicar go back inside of him. In a blink, it felt like Neena was once more looking into the green eyes of the ever mysterious holy man, the earlier cold, flat quality in them gone. 

With his voice softened, Vicar Max turned back to the other man and said, with a long-suffering sigh, “Okay, okay, _talk_ , Reggie.”

* * *

Undoubtedly, the story that Reginald Chaney had spun for both of them had been silly, to say the least. But to be honest, as Neena walked away from the man, thankfully with their surprisingly passionate Vicar at their side, the Captain was just grateful to have gotten out of the situation without watching the man destroy himself like they had gotten the feeling would happen if he had given in and killed that pitiful ex-con.

Before Neena could censor _that_ fucking unwanted thought, Chaney managed to say something as a fleeting good-bye to their backs that made Neena want to turn around and whale on him. “You saved my life, lady. I don’t want to end up like Lem. You got yourself a good woman there, ought to keep listening to her.”

Neena almost did stop in their tracks. To their surprise, expecting the always standoffish Vicar to tell the man to shut up with calling the Captain his girlfriend, Max instead powered away, walking back up the river, leaving his old compatriot behind them. Unused to being a follower, Neena walked behind the quiet Vicar, not sure what they could even say to him. 

Once they were away from the river, before Neena could finally ask him anything, Max, still turned away from them, in a low voice, said, “I don’t normally talk about this, but I used to have a problem, containing my “violent enthusiasm”. It’s been a long time, but…” he stopped, turning to look at them, a strange, sincere, vulnerable expression filling his eyes before he turned away from them, blinking rapidly and clearing his throat. “Want to say, thank you for talking me out of giving into those old urges back there with Chaney. And…. I’m sorry about lying to you. Sorry, but I’ll do anything I can to make up for it. Once I get some time to… unwind, with some quiet contemplation, I want to ask you if you would still consider letting me continue being _The Unreliable_ ’s… sorry, _your_ ship’s spiritual mentor. I’m not in any place to ask any more favors, but until then, I would appreciate you not telling any of the others about that. Back there. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay in the rental. For the night. I think I need some space to think. If anyone needs any counseling—they can damn well wait a day.”

Neena stopped, staring at Max until he looked at them questioningly. Slowly, Neena asked a question that they were sure they already knew the answer to. “Hey, buddy? You weren’t in prison as its Vicar, were you?”

Max sighed, shame resting strangely on the face of a man so prone to pride. “No.” 

Something strange struck Neena, made them say something they didn’t regret asking, but would have never thought they would be saying to this man. “You sure you want to spend the night alone?”

As though guessing what was on the Captain’s mind, while not realizing what Neena actually meant, he rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t plan to make good on any lingering needs for revenge I have. Don’t worry about me,” he surprised Neena, a rare, faint smile on his eyes growing on his full mouth as an almost rarer glint of warmth filled his eyes. “I just need some time alone. I think you’d understand more than anyone else on _The Unreliable_ , don’t you?”

Neena stared at Max, for a shameful second, debated telling this man a secret of their own. “I wasn’t lying. No matter where this hermit is—”

Max finished for them, that smile never fading from his mouth. “Right, I get it. I know you won’t stiff me.” _What an unfortunate choice of words._ “I’ve been on that ship for what feels like weeks, or out camping. Some alone time to compose myself, given what I was about to do, would be appreciated. Start to feel… civilized again.”

* * *

To be completely honest? Neena leaving Vicar Max to go skulk out after something strange to sate themselves on wasn’t Neena’s worst moment in their history. But neither was it one of their proudest moments.

 _You sure you want to spend the night alone?_ What the fuck was wrong with them?

Neena maneuvered awkwardly on the bed of a SubLight thug, where they had spent the last half hour with said thug now sprawled out, snuggling Neena’s chest like he actually thought that they were going to cuddle, given his lack of a compelling performance. 

It had become abdundantly clear that the man was asleep, with Neena still coming down from the buzz of sex and mostly from the inhaler of Hallucinol they had breathed in with a voracity that they had not felt in a long, long time, to the tune of at least seven decades, at least. Christ, they had partied like they were still that horny twenty something with something to prove to the world again.

One of these days their lifestyle was going to catch up with them. But, thankfully, it didn’t seem to be that night.

The lack of a high brought with it a fresh set of issues in the mind of someone who had hoped they could find enough peace themselves to pass out. The Captain of _The Unreliable_ couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was wrong with them. This guy certainly hadn’t been an adequate placeholder for the simmering passion that, of _all people_ , Vicar Max had shown. So, why did they even bother?

And, listening to the stuttering, phlegmy snores of the man laying on them, Neena had to debate whether or not they could stomach pretending to sleep in this sulfur-reeking room or if they could manage a walk of shame back to the ship. They were, strangely, growing homesick for their ship, their bed. Their shower.

As Neena, ten minutes later, tried to open the door to the fabricated shack-like house quietly, the Captain couldn’t help but also think that it was entirely possible that a devout worshipper solely of the good of bodily pleasure was actually becoming a mature role model after all. Unlikely, but in just the past few hours Neena had seen something else that they would have never thought possible. Keeping in mind, of course, that they had just fucked not just a stranger but a SubLight goon in a ramshackle house with extra strength laughing gas wearing off of them.

It might have had more to do with the effect that Vicar Max was having on them, but not in the sense that—either—would have been proud to admit.

* * *

As Neena crept up the stairs to _The Unreliable_ , hoping that they could get in quietly and take the ladders over to the bathroom to wash themselves thoroughly, they found themselves grateful that the one person they had no chance of running into that night would be the good Vicar. Before Neena could feel embarrassed for that ridiculous thought, the door to _The Unreliable_ slid open and ADA greeted them.

“Welcome back, Commander. Unless I am mistaken, your sensory details indicate that you are post coitus. The previous Captain Hawthorne always swore by “chasing tail” with hair of the dog. Might I recommend a shot of some fine Spectrum Vodka, or perhaps your usual aged Whiskey to chase the afterglow appropriately?”

Neena had to bite into their fist to stop from screaming at ADA. Of course the Captain soon found their restraint unrewarded, as the sound of footsteps was followed by a full role call of the ship’s roster of occupants, including SAM, emerging from all three directions.

“Fuck.”

As everyone stared at Neena, the Captain found that their usual charm had deserted them. Then they said the one, most major concern that rose up in their mind, possibly assumed by a certain somebody’s lack of presence. 

“I didn’t screw the Vicar!” They told themselves, as soon as the words had left their mouth, that they had intended to say it like it was a dark, ridiculous joke.

The profound silence that greeted the Captain told them, even as Neena was already well aware that that denial sounded an awful lot more like admittance than anything, that they had not exactly made anyone think it was a joke.

As if to solidify that fact, SAM, in his usual cheery voice, said, “Auntie Cleo’s line of marital and family planning aids, including lubricants, prophylactics, dental, vaginal, and sphincter dams, are a surefire way to spice up your love life! Auntie Cleo: Better than Nature!”

Ellie finally spoke up, saying, “I think that’s more than enough humiliation. But if you _did_ screw the Vicar, remember: you gotta share. I’m _dying_ to know what a good man of the cloth does to alleviate all of his frustration with this lack of order in the Halcyon System.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter summary lyrics are from Iggy Pop's "The Passenger", with more use of that song as the story to come!
> 
> I hope you like how this is going; I have a love of getting in the heads of different characters/trying different things in scenes shown in the original, I hope I did it differently enough to be interesting. I can't help but notice that this scene from the game has struck some of the other writers in the fandom.
> 
> Can't help but notice also that, in spite of my original, perhaps naive thought, that this pairing wasn't going to be the BIGGEST thing in this fandom, that this pairing is, in fact, the biggest thing to happen in this fandom. To the tune of, what, over ten pages of fan fic, most of which is... Captain and Max pairings. BUT--like all things, most of it is oneshots. Which isn't my taste. I like an emotional journey, so at least that differentiates this from other peoples'. I hope some of my other personal choices also helps make it special, to say nothing of what I HOPE is the good quality of it.
> 
> To be honest, if I had noticed how much this fandom had taken off, I would have been more hesitant to write this (not the biggest fan of perhaps doing what someone else has already done, maybe even better) but then again, no one would have wrote what I've written. And I think the competition/other available options for this pairing have pushed me to make a REALLY good story, not just an erotic or love story, but a funny, heartfelt one that explores the world of Halcyon. With some surprises to come.
> 
> In danger of making a lengthy treatise--alright, if you read this far, can you find it in your heart to leave a kudos and subscribe for updates? This is a popular fandom and I don't want to get buried if you'd like to keep reading!


	4. 3: Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halcyon has changed both the ship's supposed Captain and supposed Vicar. Do both have the strength to change of their own volition?

No one had told Max of the awkward occurrence on the night that he had stayed in the rental. And true to their word, Neena hadn’t told anyone about the Vicar’s own crisis of faith. At least, Neena thought that no one had told Max of their walk of shame; although they had a sinking suspicion that Ellie wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth fucking shut in the long run. Or, for that matter, that Nyoka wouldn’t spill the beans in a drunken rampage.

So Neena decided that if they meant for Max to never find out, then he was just going to not ever be left alone in his room, where any of the gossip-hungry members of the crew could try to drill, baby, drill that Vicar for gossip. 

Not that Max seemed too interested in staying in his quarters much anymore. It seemed that being available for the rare chance that someone wanted to talk to him or receive counseling had become not so essential of a concern to the Vicar, who was aggressively pushing for them to book it for the only person who could supposedly translate the journal of M. Bakuno. Downright antsy, in fact, making a fresh and unwanted new habit of being right up his Captain’s ass. And not in the way that Neena had the unfortunate habit of fantasizing about.

The days spent before they left for Scylla were pretty trying, even for someone as used to upsets as Neena. At some point, Felix—Neena couldn’t help but wonder for once if the boy was being facetious or, god forbid, serious—referred to them and Max in passing as the ship’s “mom and dad.” 

Neena might have been a bit too quick with retorting back to the boy, “I’m man and woman enough to be both.”

Maybe once Neena helped the Vicar find enlightenment, then he could part with some for his Captain. At this point Neena had to seriously wonder if they needed to learn how to meditate or something, because any night they had on _The Unreliable,_ the Captain had to spend some of it having at least one orgasm to fall to sleep at the rate they had been going. Old hungers and addictions to pleasure could never be erased, and for once it was for one person, one fixation, in particular. 

Didn’t help, also, when the source of the Captain’s discomfort was hogging the bathroom when Neena desperately wanted to wash their frustration off in a needed shower one night. They realized that the bathroom was taken when Neena found Ellie pounding on the bathroom door. 

Neena asked the ship's sawbones what was happening. Instead of answering their question, she loudly said, “Vicky, if you’re sick, you ought to tell me what’s wrong so you can stop taking up the damn bathroom like this!”

As the woman turned to give her Captain a, “Can-you-believe-this?”, look, Neena asked, “How long’s he been in there?”

Ellie cocked one of her eyebrows at Neena before she began a fresh barrage. “Oh, somewhere approaching either half an hour—or _the whole fucking night!_ ” She turned, raising her fist to start pounding on the door anew.

As she did, both people were surprised when the door slid open, revealing the man both were waiting for. Max looked at Ellie, then his gaze moved, fell directly onto Neena where it stayed, pinned. His mouth opened, and unless they were mistaken, he seemed to blush. 

At a loss for what to say, they were stopped from saying anything when Ellie roughly shoved Max out of the way, eliciting a groan from the Vicar as she went past him, muttering, “Finally”, under her breath.

Left to stare at Max, who looked as though he was deeply embarrassed—Neena guessed that he was humiliated to be seen in the aftermath of dropping his guts—they turned and walked to the kitchen to wash their hands clean in the sink, hoping that the reason for Neena’s own continued humiliation wasn’t written all over their face. And that they would be able to take a damn cold shower, soon.

* * *

By the time they landed on Scylla, the Captain was so wound up and ready to be done with thinking about Max that, when it became apparent that the surface of the asteroid was infested with everything that wanted to kill them, Neena made an executive decision to just decide to tear ass through the hoards of enemies indiscriminately.

As Neena ordered everyone to rampage to the coordinates of the supposed Hermit, Felix, who was tagging along with the other two, remarked, “Damn, Captain, this feels like a tossball match!”

If only he knew the real reason behind the frantic charge that their leader had made.

* * *

Neena took one quick look at the house where this hermit supposedly lived and thought to themselves, _shit, I really should have let Max take that sorry sonofabitch apart._ They very seriously doubted that Max would ever find the closure he wanted in a place like this; even a brutal, therapeutic beating would have surely been preferable to having to come here for some type of _enlightenment_.

Not that Neena really believed in bullshit like closure or enlightenment. But there was no time to turn back. And, looking back at him, Neena was struck by the look of trust that the Vicar was giving them.

When even _was_ the last time this man had, honestly, felt hope in something? This was damn sure the most vulnerable that Neena had ever seen him.

And they returned to the thought that had brought them here in the first place. They had to _try_. Had to hope that this would give the man some semblance of peace. If they couldn’t realistically find any such thing themselves, then the friends that Neena had unexpectedly found along the way at least deserved to feel happy.

Perhaps Max could see the unease on the Captain’s face. Before he could say anything, Felix jumped in, saying, “Hey, what’s the matter? We’re _here_ , ain’t we?” 

Neena murmured in agreement and, with a sigh, opened the door.

The old woman greeted her intruders with a smooth, doped voice. Even before Neena could get a clue about this person they had all come to see, they knew that this was the Hermit. And the Captain’s hope felt like it dropped out from under them, yet again.

She spoke dreamily to them, reminding Neena of one of the older burn outs that they used to work with on Earth in the seedy places where they used to make their money. Peace, love, and drugs, _maaaan_. Except the man next to her needed answers, needed something sure, real. Not this fucking farce. At any moment, Neena was prepared for him to call this off.

So of course Neena answered the woman’s dreamy question of if they were here to rob her or were here trying to seek the truth with an annoyed, “If you have some truth, then lady, I want it.”

Max, finally taking the initiative, brandished the book that had brought both he and the Captain together, said, “I was hoping you could translate this. Was told that this was once yours. I believe the knowledge contained within are the answers I seek—answers which will free men’s minds from toil.”

That almost surprised Neena. In the time since that night on Monarch, Max and been unusually withdrawn, less likely to speak up than he normally would have, especially about his beliefs. And, hell, some days it was hard to believe that Max legitimately cared about the tenets of his belief system at all.

The woman hesitated, then said, “I can translate it. But it won’t do you any good. I can see you are a man in a hurry, and the insights in that book would take you years of study to fully comprehend.”

So sick of this mess that being around Max had gotten them into at this point, Neena was about to demand that the woman just do it, wave her magic wand over Max and turn him into a happy person, the guy he was meant to be before this fucking system had corrupted him into someone afraid of disorder. But Max spoke up before Neena had a chance to. 

“I have spent my life in deep contemplation. I believe my mind is prepared to see the truth.”

Taking in a deep, steadying breath, Neena said, “Please. He’s come a long way for this. Isn’t there any way he can... see this truth?”

The Hermit hesitated. “There is one way we can speed up the process. It involves a combination of several ingredients, some of which can be fatal. It is not for the faint of heart, or the unprepared.”

Neena groaned, throwing their head back. What the _fuck_ had Max gotten them pulled into this time? _Death_? Instead of saying what was really making Neena worried, they said, “And, lemme guess, I need to go and pick the fucking flowers over on Monach, another one on Terra 2, stop me if you’ve ever heard this one…”

The Hermit stared at the Captain, then shook her head. “Oh, no, why would I need you to do that? I have everything I need ready. But I am only hesitant to give it to him alone.”

“Why’s that?” And again Neena spoke freely, honestly. Maybe _too_ honestly for their own good. “Max is the most prepared person I’ve ever met. If you can hope to find someone who’s more ready for your fucking _truth_ , I would like to meet them.” They were unaware of how they were gesticulating wildly, flailing their hands aggressively. Losing their cool, their illusion of control.

Still, the Hermit barely seemed to so much as blink at them. Then Neena realized that this woman smelled, overwhelmingly, of B.O and some truly cliched incense. 

Neena decided that maybe they could bullshit their way through this obvious nonsense, then afterward they could have a nice, long talk with Max about how he could find his own fucking meaning in saving hundreds of trapped colonists with his Captain and the rest of their weird found family together. He could try to teach his Great Engineer bullshit to whomever he wanted on that ship. _Fuck it._

Gone in the ensuing days since this moment was the lie they had told themselves, that they wanted him to leave. He had a room aboard _The Unreliable_ for as long as he goddamn well lived, as much as Neena was concerned. Even if they had to hold the man hostage. Hopefully with the additional involvement of ropes, gags, and ripped open vestments.

She said it in such an agreeable, happy voice that the gravity of her words barely stuck with Neena. “I am hesitant to give it to anyone who’s unprepared, because the treatment can induce hallucinations followed by unconsciousness and a headache, or raving insanity. Which can be fun in its own way.”

Neena, so caught up in the emotional tax that getting here had taken on them, finally realized what this was. “Oh, _wait_ . Wait, wait, wait,” they turned, looked at Max, a smile growing on the Captain’s face. “She’s talking about _drugs_ . Fuck.” Neena paced, wiping at their mouth, unsure if they wanted to laugh, or cry. They had come for some profound truth, and instead of _forty-two_ this woman was talking about something like an ayahuasca trip. “She’s going to pump you full of ‘shrooms or chew some leaves up and spit them into your mouth, Maxy my friend.” They did bite out a laugh then, a manic sound even to Neena’s own ears.

If he was going to say something, Max was stopped by the Hermit who spoke up, only the vaguest hint of annoyance as she spoke. “A _crass_ way to put it, sir or madam, but yes. They are chemicals that can expand—or destroy—the participant's consciousness. And if it’s not administered in such a way that only two people, the one meant to go on the journey and their guide, are solely present, then its use will have a host of possible unwanted results.”

Neena groaned, putting their hands on their head. The Captain looked at Max, the thought that they could have superseded all of this if they had just let the Vicar knock the shit out of the moron who had believed this woman’s bullshit, blaring bright in their mind. 

But Max looked back at his Captain, his eyes bright yet again with that hope what was so uncharacteristic to the man. It shook them to realize it, but in the two months that they had spent together, the Vicar had come to trust them. 

He trusted his Captain completely to guide him. Wrong though it undoubtedly was. Neena shut their eyes and forced a breath out of their lungs. _Think,_ think, _you stupid burnout._

As if sensing the war in Neena, the woman remarked, “I believe this man is ready, if he wishes to take it. There is both violence and peace warring inside of you, Max. But this process would be extremely tenuous for one such as yourself, especially if you don’t put your trust in your guide, throughout the process.”

Neena let out a choked cry, rolling their eyes up to the broken tiles in the ceiling. It was bizarre to conceive of, given the circumstances, but they couldn’t stop thinking; _When are you supposed to know it’s time to let a baby bird try to fly out of the nest?_ But this wasn’t flight, it was hardcore hallucinogens, the kind that Neena themselves had seen destroy the minds of some who, as the woman had indeed warned, had lost their shits when they had taken them. Not a hardcore substance enthusiast like his Captain, of course. 

And whatever Max needed to do, to find his own peace, was his own decision to make, to take that chance. Still, didn’t they have a responsibility to the man, even if only because he was their crew member? Or, stranger still, as his friend?

When Neena looked back at the man whose fate seemed to be in question, they realized that he was staring right at them before he turned to look back at the Hermit. With strength in his voice that sent inappropriate shivers through his Captain’s body, he said, “I’m committed, no matter the cost. So, you will guide me—”

The woman interrupted, chuckling in that strange dry tone. “Oh, me, heaven’s no. It would take someone close to you, someone you trust implicitly…”

Neena had a feeling that he didn’t exactly trust them “implicitly”, but if this was what he wanted to do, then they knew, immediately, they were stuck in this role. Yes, no matter how he made them feel, Max was their friend. and if this was what he was set to do—

“I’m taking it too. I’ll guide him.” Whatever it meant to be his “guide”.

Felix made a sound in the back of his throat, then he said that he would do the same, eagerly. 

The Hermit shook her head. “You would be an intruder on an intimate ceremony. I will not have more than two at once. I commend this Captain to offer themselves as a guide for a member of their crew, and I believe that with their help, this man can find his truth, wherever it may take him.”

Felix started to argue, but Max spoke up again. “I agree. It wouldn’t sit right in my conscience to have a boy do this.” He flicked an apologetic smile at the young man. “Whatever truth I find, I will be sure to share it with you freely.”

The Hermit smiled and nodded at Felix. “That’s right.”

Felix threw his hands up, disappointment clear on his face. “I am not a boy, I’m a man! This isn’t _fair_!”

The Hermit spoke up quickly, adding, “Again, I must stress that this isn’t a journey meant for more than two at a time. The results would be… too unpredictable.”

Felix started to argue once again, but a clap of the hand—Max’s—on his shoulder silenced him. He hesitated, then closed his eyes with a sigh, looking at Max, then at Neena meaningfully. “I want to do it, I woulda been proud to—to take the adventure with you guys.”

There was a brief show of some strange emotion on the Hermit’s face—one that Neena couldn’t place—and she came closer to the young man, beckoning to him. “Oh, I’m certain no one would doubt your tenacity or loyalty. But this is a time when you’re best proving such things by simply letting them go on this journey alone..” She surprised them by reaching forward, taking Felix’s hand in her own. “Come, I know a safe way back to that ship I saw you dock over there,” she nodded to the door before she turned to look at the two who were left to stand, awkwardly, in her home. “I’ll stay a while in that ship of yours, so don’t worry about being interrupted. You will be alone together, until you both emerge from the room, changed. The sacramental incense is on the table. You both must breathe deeply of the first tendrils of smoke that pours from it. It will fill the room in due time and you will not need to stand directly over it then. There is comfortable furniture in there, I think you will find it more than adequate to suit your needs. Whatever else you may find in the room is there for you to use, so don’t be afraid to use any tools you may need.”

That made every hair on Neena’s body stand on damn end. But if they wanted to back out, now, it seemed like their fate was sealed as the Hermit, true to her word, led an obviously emotional Felix outside as soon as she finished talking. 

They figured, though, hell, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t already put themselves in harm’s way more times than not, just for a laugh or a fuck. They could do this for a man that had become one of their friends. _Friends_ , in plural.

What had Halcyon done to Neena Castillo, anyway?

When they turned to look at Max—who, somewhere along this journey, had stopped becoming Vicar Max had just become _Max_ —Neena felt like they were being similarly pulled in by what she saw in his eyes. _Come with me._

God damn puppy love. 

Yeah, infatuation had never spelled out anything except pain for them. But this time it seemed like it was here to stay, even if made no logical or even emotional sense. Left them longing for the supposed reason and cold clarity that this man himself had always sworn by.

Still, Neena sighed and, without thinking, took the taller man’s hand in theirs. He jumped slightly at the touch, Neena didn’t blame him. But he seemed to be less surprised at the intimacy than he once had. And touching his hand left them surprised; Neena had expected that his hands would be as smooth as one would expect from someone who spent his life reading books. Instead, they discovered that his hands were rough, calloused.

Feeling emboldened by the fact that they were alone, Neena looked at Max, smiled, and said, “Well, c’mon, time to pop your cherry, Vic.”

That managed to make the man grow a deep, overwhelmingly adorable shade of red as he stuttered. Feeling at least a little better about having to breathe in some random Witch’s drugs with the sight of the man next to them hot and bothered, Neena walked with Max’s hand in theirs down the hall to the back room.

As they hesitated to open the door, Max surprised Neena by saying, “You know, you ought to not assume what you know about a person.”

The irony of that sentence didn’t escape Neena. Still, emboldened by what they were about to do, Neena replied, “Don’t you worry, I’m sure this is going to let us get to know each other better than you ever could imagine.” 

But as Neena finally got the nerve to open the door, they almost staggered back, had to do a double take from what they found in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try to be brief, I'm really going to try, here. I mean it; I've been re-reading a VERY old partially written manuscript... hand-written, although I do need to finish writing this story as well. 
> 
> So we're going to start getting into where my version of the game's story (which will go up to the final story mission on Byzantium) and the official one, will differ. I have already written the characters, while close to the version portrayed in the game, with some key differences. We're going to go off the official path-in more ways that one--and for full clarity, my reasoning for the character choices I've made and full on new scenes are to build this story into an emotional tale and climax that I feel was missing from the original game, out of an understandable need to write the story in such a way that it could be fulfilling no matter how you played as Captain Hawthorne. With respect to the original story, I am not writing Obsidian's Captain Hawthorne, I am writing Captain Neena Castillo, who has their own personality that differs even from the choices provided in the game, and has their own emotional and even historical baggage that will increasingly play a part in the story, so I am going to press the main characters more than they ever did in the game--and take certain ones to places where the game never would have allowed. I would argue, to the game's detriment.
> 
> I guess that's me trying to be transparent about where this story is going, trying to keep my wall of tags to something more manageable? 
> 
> Ah, that's it for the commentary for this chapter, I am interested--I hope--to hear some of your opinions, having read this far. What do you think's gonna happen? What do you think of how I've portrayed the game's characters? And if you haven't already, I hope that if you've read this far that you will leave a kudos on my story, it means a lot to me. This is the best and most constructive writing community I've ever seen, I am happy to keep contributing to not only this canon (and, wow, it is addicting to read different writers' depictions of these characters--especially the Captain) but to this platform, which does good, important work. I decided to upload this story exclusively to Ao3, not crossposting to Wattpad, mostly because their fanfiction community is just shambles, but also because I am increasingly amazed by how well this site is built and cared for, I am proud to now be a part of it.
> 
> Still managed to write an essay!
> 
> \---k.


	5. 4: Truth; or, the Joys Thereof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The most dangerous people with secrets are those who most believe that they have a tight leash on them.

At first Neena didn’t know which of them said it. “What the fuck is this?” 

Max walked in until he was standing at his Captain’s side, so close that they had to let his hand go. “Oh, well. Goodness.” The sight seemed to have rendered the ship’s Vicar into stunned silence.

 _Goodness,_ indeed _._

The room was swathed in diaphanous red cloth, hanging from the ceiling and off of the furniture. The air smelled like a much stronger version of the incense that the Hermit smelled powerfully of, wild and cloying. There was dim light, courtesy the false windows that made it look like there was natural starlight streaming in through the weight of the red fabric it was partially swathed in, and a little table sat in the middle of the room on which sat the metallic, ball shaped incense burner, flanked by two small chairs. Sitting against the wall to the right of the door was an overstuffed Chesterfield loveseat, even the curving arches of its back seeming to be insinuating a certain mood.

But, most importantly—

Max said it, his once smoothness seemingly forgotten. “Well. That’s, um, quite the bed.”

 _Quite the bed_ was putting the centerpiece of this room, which sat on the far wall, too modestly. Neena hadn’t seen a bed like that since Earth, and even then, this kind was a rarity. 

The bed was a four poster, impressively huge. It was the first bed that they had seen, honestly, that seemed to even suggest that a couple was meant to lay down in it since coming to the Halcyon system. The bed begged the question of what in the hell it was doing here, with there already being a bed in the first room that Neena had just seen.

At the foot of it was a large, wooden chest, draped in the same red fabric as nearly everything else was, including the four poster bed. Their first instinct, Neena wanted to walk over and look into it, curiosity and a habit of scrounging that they had cultivated in the past few months drawing them to almost crossing the distance between them and it. At the moment, though, they were just too shocked by the sight of everything in the room to even have the ability to walk to it. It felt like they could barely stand as it was.

How their mouth wasn’t dropping open at the sight of it all was perhaps a testament to how shocking the day thus far had been and less of how unphased they generally were. After all, this whole adventure had turned into a debacle. All because of their ship’s _fucking holy man._

Neena swallowed, their mouth suddenly dried out. 

If Ellie was there, Neena knew that the woman would not have been shy of saying aloud what this place looked like. Even worse; it felt like a mockery of every frustrated emotion and thought Max had roused in them.

The man in question spoke up again. “Well, this is certainly— _strange_ —I hope this doesn’t make you… that is… I would understand if you wouldn’t want to be in here—with me—”

Neena shut their eyes and reached over again, grabbed his larger hand in theirs, silencing him from the surprise of the sudden touch. “Alright, enough. I don’t know how long we actually have before Parvati sends out a search party for us.” _And finds us in a room like this. Together._

Max let out a sound, like a yelp, but followed his ship’s Captain into the room. Neena walked further in, then, sighing, ordered the man to shut the door behind them. They had let go of his hand, and Neena had to push off the strange feeling that followed letting him go. As they heard the soft sigh of the door shutting, they looked down at the item meant to burn what was supposed to be the drug. But looking at it, Neena hesitated, really wanted to pull the thing apart and look at the stuff that this thing was supposed to burn. What if this was a _trap_ , not like they didn’t have to deal with their fair share of mines thus far—

Max walked up behind them and, with hesitation that Neena could sense, they felt him reaching over, cupping the weight of his hand around their shoulder. A sign of trust between them that Neena knew he never would have expressed, even a month earlier. 

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

 _I’m not about to make you do this alone._ So, like they were as calm as if this was some part of their normal life, Neena found the switch on the thing that would light the incense, turned it on. _Besides, didn’t I play Russian Roulette once—or was that just a bad trip?_

Before Max could say a word, Neena leaned forward, drawing their lungs full of the first thick grey fog that rose from it. After all, it was the Captain’s duty to take the risks for the team first. Especially if it had anything to do with narcotics.

Whoa. The smell—it felt, almost— _no_ , why did it have to be those impure impressions to come first to mind?

Surprised by the immediate impression the weight left in their lungs, Neena felt themselves being gently moved to sit on the Chesterfield by helping hands. They watched with semi-bemusement as Max turned around once he was sure that Neena was alright to hunch over the incense himself before they could even imagine stopping him. 

Neena studied this man in profile. The proud, strong weight of his face, his deep brows and shockingly masculine jawline. He had little cuts and slight indents on his face, signs of past deeds that indeed spoke of his self-professed “violently enthusiastic” disposition, or at least his love of tossball. But then he also had such—succulent—looking lips, Neena could admit that, now, with the fog now moved up to their brain, asking them questions about the focus of their recent obsession. 

Large-eared, it made him look all the more attractive, in the way that it offered contrast to his large, deep set eyes whose green reminded them of home, of Earth, and that honey brown hair, swept back with the rest kept trimmed on the sides of his head, looked like it teased Neena, begging to be pet, to be felt. He looked downright noble, but undeniably ignoble as well; the calluses on his hands, the dark shadows that stretched out from his heart, no matter how he tried to hide them with decorum, good manners, and careful study that his religion afforded him, all were there to be seen if you actually spent time with him. And he was such an _awful_ excuse for a show of humility, not bothering to hide his true feelings of disappointment and sometimes unmasked disdain for the less than ideal way that Halcyon had transformed into a cesspit. God, how many steps removed from a religious conman _was_ he?

All of him was a feast, a contradiction that begged a careful study more than his own religion bore merit to Neena. They watched as the holy man drank in the smell, the fog caressing his face in a way that left them jealous.

Max groaned, staggering a step back, shaking his head. In a strange, throaty voice, he said, “I think—I feel a little weird—”

* * *

Neena was back at their family’s farm. Of course, even nearing a hundred years ago, Earth farms were nothing like they had been in the past. Farming was done in domes, everything separated, perfected, monoculture out of necessity as a means to protect the branding of the DNA of each crop and therefore as a means to secure income. Every crop was started with an understanding, completely, of what it would result in. All of the farmhands were near-serf, living by the whims of the insanely rich family who owned the property.

Neena’s family.

The strangest crop to have ever been born of the collection of farms that almost made up the entirety of Mexico and the southern part of America had been the tomboy, Neena. Heir apparent to the fortune.

It was a strange thing to recall; the memory of the day they were walking outside of the dome that housed a portion of corn that was the bumper crop for the food items manufactured by the then-fledgling Spacer’s Choice, the shapes of those squat, bio-engineered stalks of corn vague shadows in the partially reflective surface of the dome, if the girl wanted to press their face to it. They had gotten away from their tutor that afternoon, in a brief, stolen half hour, and they had decided to walk through the grass that grew between some of the domes. 

The air outside of these domes, in this part of the world, at least, was suspect; always stunk a bit if you focused on it for too long. _Spoiled,_ that was what her abuelo had called the soil that they had used for generations upon generations, so now they had to use only the stuff that was made in a lab. The air, the water, much of it was spoiled, like their soil had been, long before Neena had been born.

But the little heiress nevertheless loved walking out here, walking with their shoes off, letting their bare feet touch the sparse, dry ground. Walking especially across any nice little bit of grass that was tenacious enough to grow here, even in the looming shadows of their family’s agricultural domes. 

Once they had dreamed of farming, but not like this; with love and dedication, bending their own back to plant, water, and harvest on their own. Before their mother had made it a point to crush that ridiculous notion with a hefty dose of reality. Farming was a question of crushing financial margins, brutal corporate takeovers, and cold, hard science. And Neena themselves had once been a coldly calculated mascot for the company, a sweet-faced little girl that their famously ice-cold mother could hold as proof of having family values. _See, I have a little girl, ergo I am capable of human emotions._

Neena valued that grass that grew between the domes, the stubborn and natural tufts of it, would one day find that it reminded them of themselves—

They glanced in the strange, eerie material of the dome they had been walking next to, realized that they were no longer Neena the tan-fleshed, babyfat girl, but was now the andogynous person who had woken up among the others, so many others, who were left to die in the cold, so far from this Earth.

Neena could only stare at themselves, blinking back at a mirror image of a person who had eyes just like their father’s, a dappled brown when happy, dark, almost black when overcome with passion, rage.

Neena heard him ask it, walking up behind her, so close that he might as well embrace her. _Am I allowed to touch you?_

He was an alien, a being not of this Earth that existed in their memories. Had been born in a world far beyond this place. Not tainted by the rot and the misery that Neena had found on Earth.

They could hear the words coming not from their mouth, but from their heart: “Oh, love, more than I could ever say _yes_.”

They felt the weight of his arms around them, drawing them back to his chest. They wanted to look at that mirror image, almost to feel victorious against the coldness Neena could remember of their early life—hell, most of their life, before it was saved by awakening in Halycon—and see themselves wrapped up in him like they wanted to be. Like they were meant to be.

But before they could look, Neena felt a hand on the side of their face, guiding them to meet his. Heavy green eyes looked into their soul as asked them, not aloud, if they could ever deign to let a man fated to be a mere laborer touch someone as enchanted by wealth as they once were. They almost laughed at this; Neena was no princess, had spurned the concept at every available turn, to great consequence to themselves.

Now they only hungered to be conjoined with someone who needed them as much as they needed him.

But when ever did Max not argue? _By sweet verity, a_ princess _is what you are. And I was born to be some company’s slave. I have no right_ —

Neena stopped his nonsense, did what they had wanted to do for too long, and kissed the man. They felt no resistance, only a long-awaited tension that had been drawn far too tight around him, now finally released, like the elastic band that the man himself had once told them was what bound a person’s fate to the path designated by the great Engineer. 

If this was what his Great Equation had meant for him to do, then Neena would have to wonder what had taken him so long to bring him here with them.

When they opened their eyes, Neena discovered that they were with Max, could see him fully now. Vicar Max, sans the Vicar, for his vestments were—

_Oh, what a journey I’ve been on._

Neena was diving into the beautiful, man-made lake that their family owned, but they realized only when they hit the warm, beautiful water that they had actually dove inside of Max. They were inside of him, feeling every emotion that the fullness their presence provided him. It was something that he had been searching for his whole life, but the man had been looking in the wrong place. What Maximillion wanted wasn’t something sacred; not in the sense that he understood it, at least. It was profane, decadent, selfish—everything the people who had enchained his soul railed against.

Max gave easily, moaning, losing control finally. Begging for more, more, _more_.

And Neena devoured every lush moment of the feeling, not some removed on-looker as the man writhed, was being reborn, sprawled out before them. Indeed they were at an altar of his flesh, and they took their consecration at this man’s beautiful soul, body, heart. Pleased him with their voracious sincerity, tempered with a lush gentleness. They were patient, curious, humored every weakness and fear that they eased the man through. It was these very traits that allowed this man, whose heart was always at war with him, to finally feel free with the relief of being cherished by someone he trusted implicitly. Even the knowledge, that they were bottoming him out, was somehow made beautiful through that intimacy.

It ended far too soon for Neena, only for them to realize that it was their turn. 

Shuddering, Neena felt the man, who was indeed half filled with a profound calm as well as an ever-present maelstrom of fire, run his form over theirs, his whole body radiating a joyfulness that neither had felt in more than short bursts since they were themselves children. Neena surrendered the female part of themselves as the masculine side lay sated from having taken of his lover’s sweetness.

Neena trembled like a fresh bride, flush with excitement and even a delicious amount of fear, apprehension. It didn’t matter _who_ they were; in this situation Neena could only marvel at his surprisingly fit body, at the heft of his frame when he lay over them only once he had took his time exploring Neena’s body. And it was intoxicating; as much as they had done with others, Neena had never been with someone who knew them this profoundly. They had always been afraid, after all, of the eventual rejection.

He knew everything about them, could feel the burst of fear in that word—rejection. He shushed that terror, gentled but novice hands, eager, sliding against that terror that had always stopped Neena from trying to reveal themselves. _I promise you that I’ll show you exactly how much I treasure you._

Neena didn’t know what parts of themselves they were read from, gently, by the Vicar like his Captain was one of his prized books, and which parts they told the man with trembling need, admittances that, in some instances, had never been fully told to another living soul, outside of some therapist or head-fixer that their family had sent them to to _fix their daughter._

 _I want to show you everything about me, like how you gave me yourself,_ he admitted.

And he did. Soon, They knew of Max’s agony and sorrow, his shame and passion. So very much of it, until it left Neena shivering in a veritable sea of emotion, rage, need, a fire to protect him. Old shames—it turned out that the man was like they were, a runaway from a fate that had seemed certain, seeking what he couldn’t get from the station he was born into life as. A laborer, the son of an illiterate worker and another who was only semi-literate. Both of whom he had left to take on a persona that he had believed in so much, had wanted to be the vessel for the truth, for change, as he understood it. And prison had not been the wake up call he would have needed, instead proved to be a tempering fire.

In that sense it felt like they were each other’s match, both discontent as youths, utterly wild as they grew up, refusing to let life dictate what they should do. So ironic, for a man who swore to abide by Scientism so devotedly.

He laughed at that tease, showing that he acknowledged the strangeness now, that this had managed to fulfill him where those beliefs had always left him empty. Where at least trying to repress his true self hurt him, disfigured his heart.

And only when Max had taken his time, enjoying as much of his Captain’s body in a hazy exploration as he wanted did he acknowledge the heavy need that Neena felt to be filled with all of him. Wanted him to show his Captain every single centimeter of his newfound love and single-minded devotion.

When it seemed like he was taking too long, and Neena cried out, he let them know that it was _his_ turn to do what he wanted, a slight bite from a man who could, after all, never shed who he was. But as soon as Neena started to thrust themselves against him, demanding satisfaction like only he could provide, Max shocked his partner by filling them.

The overwhelming sensation of being filled by a man that had once seemed unattainable was beyond anything they had ever felt. It got to the point that Neena almost feared they might be filled completely by him and never again feel like themselves.

Of course it had to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> END
> 
> How horrible would it be if it ended here? Seriously. I'd be angry enough at myself to do something real evil in retribution, like actually use the box of makeup a family member mystifyingly bought me some christmas ago. Seriously. Seriously. 
> 
> I had to revise and work on this chapter more than perhaps any other thus far, so if you're still mad at me, at least feel better knowing I've slaved over this damn thing. This is really a sort of sex scene I don't play around with, I tend to say if it's an emotional or compelling sex scene, then I show it, no barriers no euphemism. I hope it works, even though I really like it and I believe it works here. I wanted to channel something strange and alienating while being warm and overwhelming at the same time. I'm sure if you like it or don't, you'll be sure to let me know in the comments, right? Good!


	6. 5: An Honest Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when a rake is shocked by a wallflower?

Tired. So. Damn. _Tired._

Neena finally found the mental and physical ability to sit up. As they did, they couldn’t help wincing at the bruises on their nether regions, the chaffing with every movement they made. Forcing their eyes open, head still thrumming with the residual effects of whatever the fuck they had tripped on, Neena made futile attempts at recalling their memory of the night before—only to find it stubbornly refusing to return. Then they stopped trying to summon their memories as they saw the man on the opposite side of the room.

Strangely enough, the man; be it due to the headache that now started to throb in the back of their head, or because they just weren’t used to seeing him out of those impeccable blue-purple vestments, Neena almost mistook him for a messy-haired stranger. Once they finally recognized him, Neena grinned stupidly at Max, mumbling out, “What, I claw my clothes off and eat ‘em?”

Vicar Max, who they now realized had been in the middle of pulling his pants onto his hips, chuckled lowly. “Something like that, sure.” The sound, of him pulling up the zipper, drew Neena’s gaze directly onto his crotch. 

Sore body. Weird recollections involving their hazy memories and… oh. _Oh._

Neena gasped, aware of their nudity—and not just that, but they were _nude_ , in light of what seemed like what should have been blindly obvious. 

As they reached around them on the tousled bed, pulling the blanket to cover themselves, Max immediately confirmed exactly what Neena was thinking. In the soft voice that Neena was once used to him talking to them about the tenets of his belief system in, but without any of the once-present patronizing tone, he said, “Without being indelicate, I think I can say we’re past being modest, don’t you think?”

“You’re saying we fucked?” Of course, they had meant to phrase it nicer, but given the situation—watching as Vicar Max finished pulling those austere clothes back on—Neena thought that they could be forgiven for being _indelicate_.

In the middle of Max tucking his undershirt into his pants, he stopped, sighing. “I’m _saying_ that the drugs the Hermit had us inhale led to us being intimate with each other. For at least... some portion of the time we spent under its influence.” When Neena’s reaction was only to continue to stare at him, Max closed his eyes, seemed to sag a bit. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you were scandalized by it.” 

If Neena wasn’t so shocked, they might have noticed the gentle humor underlying what he said. Shaking their head as if the action could somehow make this odd dream make sense, Neena said, “I’m sorry, I’m just—” they scratched at the back of their head, looking for their smoothness, their confidence. 

Once upon a time, Neena had thought themselves a proud slut. But, somehow, the thought, of having actually gone _through_ with it with a member of her crew; let alone the guy who was having a crisis of faith, the ship’s religious mentor, left them feeling guilt-riddled. It wasn’t Neena’s style, sleeping with someone struggling with who they were and wanted to be—at least it wasn’t, since Neena had learned to use their powers of seduction with some morality. They, of all people, knew how fragile a person’s sense of self, and emotions, were in a time like this was for someone like Max.

Last thing he needed was for his superior to screw him. And they knew that with someone like him, sex wouldn’t just mean a quickie. He needed someone to be there for him emotionally.

The one thing Neena wasn’t capable of.

Finally, clearing their throat, Neena looked at Max—the man that they had spent some of last night, if their fractured and still very fuzzy memory served them right, fucking—and said, “I need to clear my head a bit.”

Max’s eyes were inscrutable, but Neena thought that they could see something they would have once thought impossible— _sadness_?—in them. Nevertheless, the man smiled lightly. “Of course. I wasn’t planning on forcing myself on you. You have nothing to fear from me, Neena.”

Forcing himself on me? _Oh, my_ . Neena drew the blanket around them like some pitiful makeshift toga, discovered that their eyes couldn’t quite meet his any longer. “I need to use the Hermit’s facilities.” _Need a minute alone to think about what’s happened._ And to try to quell some of the unwanted, thrilling emotions that arose in them, what could be certainly seen as his eagerness, given what had happened during their fugue, did to Neena’s overactive libido. Even in the aftermath of what seemed like something, well, legendary.

One side of Max’s lips lifted in what could be construed as a smile. He waved at the door in a magnanimous gesture. It was the first time that Neena noticed that his voice was hoarse. “Be my guest. Take your time, I’m sure you could get some use out of that shower.”

“R-right.” As Neena got out of the bed they realized _just_ how sore they were. It felt like they had just woken up from a nap following an all nighter, spent with someone as voraciously insatiable as they were. Their cunt, their ass—it felt like all of them had gotten a work out. Including their jaws.

They might have fixated on that idea—of who had undoubtedly given that very specific soreness to Neena—if not for the fact that, once their bare feet hit the cold ground, they saw the state that the room was in.

The table that held that damned incense seemed to be the sole item that had not been bothered. The sheer, red cloth that covered everything had almost all but been torn down, laid all over the floor, the end of the bed, on the Chesterfield, and had been draped on the lectern, Some had even been left on the bed as a haphazard mess—including what seemed, with a cursory glance, to be some that had been tied into knots. For some reason, the sight of the lectern—a thing that was something which Neena tied immediately to the church that they had first met Max in—made them burn a bright red.

_What sort of a sermon might Father Maximillian have given the night before?_

But the sight, of what had happened to the cloth, was nothing in comparison to what they would find, laid out in front of the chest on the ground. They pushed the thought away, almost making it across the room before they saw the absolute show stopper out of the corner of their eye. Laid out on yet more of the red cloth, like it was an ominous object of worship. 

To be honest, Neena had been worried about the repercussions on their body from the night before, but the image, of the many opened packets of Auntie Cleo’s Prophylactics, and even the glimmering, still wet bodies of many of the condoms, both made them relieved that they were not about to walk away from the night with an unintended consequence inside of them, specifically, but also shocked them to their core. But more than that shock was the one made by the sight of the also still glistening object next to the pile of used condoms.

The sight of the dildo, and the large, round container of Auntie Cleo’s Warm n’ Sweet Lubricant laid next to the shockingly large pile of condom refuse, was one of the most pointed and obvious signs that Neena could have ever gotten about what had happened.

Wait. _Wait._

The Hermit had a collection of condoms, lube, and a—a _hopefully_ brand new dildo?

And they had _used_ it?

If Neena fixated on it, they thought that they could remember the night before. It was a hallucination, at least, they would have _thought_ it was. After all, their memories were wrapped up in old recollections, just with Max, or at least, the impression of him, interacting with them. And some of that interaction happened to involve Vicar Max _touching_ them. But more than that, they could remember, before Max got a chance of filling it in for them, Neena had filled a profound void that had existed in him—

Before Neena could become overwhelmed with the realization that what they had thought was a personal fantasy was, somehow, something that had _really_ happened, they felt the shockingly familiar, intimate weight of Max’s hand on their bare shoulder.

“Hey,” he said, his voice soft as he gazed meaningfully at Neena. “I can tell this is pretty shocking to you. While it does hurt my ego in no small amount,” he smiled as he said that, the unusual sight of it warming to Neena, deep in their guts. “we can take this as slow as you want. Take your time.”

Take your time. Like this is just the beginning of some new direction in my life.

Neena meant to say something to him, but the sight of the door—a way, away from this warm, heavy-scented room—left them scrambling, holding the blanket tight around themselves. Outside, Neena ran into the bathroom, shedding the blanket only once they were certain that they had closed the bathroom’s door behind them. And locked it. 

They couldn’t let themselves think too much of the look that must have been on his face as they ran away.

Even for a coward, the shower’s heat was a welcome addition on their skin, warmth coursing over places on their body where a telltale sliminess wet the inside of their thighs, soothed the bruised muscles. As they turned their head in the stream of water, Neena gasped, felt a sweet, answering pain on their neck. When they had finished with the shower, Neena looked in the mirror to confirm what they already knew—a love bite had been left. As they examined themselves, they discovered it was not just on their neck; a telltale bruise seemed to have been left on both of Neena’s breasts, on the globe of one of their ass cheeks, on the inside of their thighs. It was as if someone had marked spots on their body, like an explorer claiming territory. 

It made Neena shiver, thinking of the person who had to of left it. Tried to comprehend how he must have looked, clamping his mouth on their body in a hot frenzy, inspired by their wails for mercy or, even more likely, for more—

Neena took a deep breath, forcing the thought from their mind. After all, they had never known when to stop, would fixate on something until it possessed them. And, if they knew themselves, wild animal as their old self was, the one who had been frozen and shot into Halcyon, then Neena may very well have unleashed their inner freak on an at least semi decent man of the cloth, if their inhibitions _had_ been snapped loose.

For once honestly ashamed of themselves, Neena looked at the person in the mirror and shook their head at their reflection. They couldn’t dispose of the feeling that this had happened because of them. Not just allowing the Vicar to go on a drug trip to try to find his truth, but the end result of the hallucination. Only one of them had openly harbored sexual desires for the other, after all.

“Oh my god,” Neena mumbled, looking at themselves in the mirror, eyes wide. “I did this.”

Neena felt more than enough shame to make up for a good almost decade and some change, filled with people whom they had seduced and opened a whole world of potential to, only to leave in their dust once they had finished with them.

After all, what was the point in hanging around after they had both gotten everything they could have wanted out of another person?

Even though their pining and fantasies had taken to the dark-sided Vicar, Neena knew that a large reason why they had never acted on it was simple: the people on the ship looked up to them, and it felt wrong to abuse the trusts of any of them by getting one in the sack.

Of course, that thought had only ever applied to one man in particular. 

_I did it. I actually—fucked—Vicar Max._

Wrapping a towel around themselves and walking out of the bathroom, Neena was surprised to hear someone in the area further into the house. As they took another step, their foot hit something soft. Looking down, Neena realized that they were looking at their clothes, the ones they had worn before the hallucination had kicked in. Everything was stacked there, folded neatly—including their briefs and bra.

Face burning brightly, Neena stepped back in the bathroom and pulled their clothes on. Tried the whole time to not think too much about the Vicar’s hands gliding over their undergarments as he carefully folded them. Once dressed, outside of the bathroom Neena carried the blanket into the room of sin. Almost as soon as they entered, they were taken aback by the smell of the place, after having left it for a few minutes. 

Whoa.

Well, if the place had looked like a bordello, then it now smelled like one. The unmistakable smell of long, heaving sex lingered in the room, mingled with the aroma of the incense that they had breathed in, which had extinguished a long time ago. 

Before Neena could do, say anything, Max surprised them by entering the room, walking past Neena as though this was as normal a situation as anything. They watched as the man, dressed in his prim purple-blue vestments, walked into the room that he had most assuredly fucked Neena in.

Neena wondered briefly before they had a chance to shove the thought away, if his fully covering vestments were also covering up any bruises and signs of love bites on _his_ skin.

He picked up their packs, slinging his over his shoulders and he turned, finally acknowledging his ship’s Captain, who was staring at him, just short of dropping their mouth open in shock. 

The older man gave them another one of those strange, beautiful half-smiles. “I cleaned up the biohazards,” he nodded to the spot where the telltale pile of wet condoms had been and the now missing dildo. “But I don’t think I much want to do any more cleaning in here. Especially given the fact that she neglected to _inform_ us that we would be spending the time under the influence of the drug by having intercourse with each other. And she hasn’t come back to explain her reasoning or methodology, it would seem.”

Neena coughed, their face growing hot. That word, as clinical as it came when describing hot sex as any word ever could, nevertheless sounded strangely appealing when it came from the refined mouth of a holy man. Who, no matter how much experience he may have had with it previously, now had what seemed like quite a wild night in his memory, due in no small part to them. Before they could do anything to embarrass themselves, Neena asked, “How long have we been in here?”

Max’s eyes were stuck, permanently, it seemed, on his Captain. “According to my clock, we’ve been in here for over twelve hours.”

That went a ways to describing why they felt dehydrated. And gave a quiet answer to why they felt so exhausted. Still—

“Oh, my god.” They had become a broken record in the matter of half a day.

Something, a flicker of humor, alit the Vicar’s deep green eyes. “I would agree, but I don’t think any all-knowing figure or force had anything to do with it.”

Okay, _that_ was different. 

Neena saw the man for the first time with the thought that what had happened the night before had changed him. Trying to stave away the unwholesome thoughts that occurred to them, they started to walk out of the room. “The others must be so worried about us, we’d better be getting back.” Jesus, talk about doing everything in their power to ignore the fucking elephant in the room.

Max said nothing, but followed them out to the entrance. Only when Neena hesitated at the opened doorway did he touch them. When Neena glanced back at him, he gave them another seemingly uncharacteristic light smile and handed them their pack. That was when Neena realized that they had showered—but the good Vicar had not. 

Almost afraid to pick the subject back up, Neena nevertheless found the courage to do it, saying, “Hey, just wanted to let you know, you smell like, um, the room.”

Expecting Max, ever the delicate one, the cleanliest person on the ship next to SAM, to react perhaps by running to the shower to scrub himself clean, the man surprised Neena by seeming to melt into a warm, broad smile. “I know, right? I think it’s my new favorite smell.”

Neena stared at him, eyes wide with shock. Their intention, to tell Max that the connotation of that telltale smell would not be missed by most of _The Unreliable_ ’s crew if they happened to smell it on him, died in the back of their throat at the sight of the genuine joy they saw in his face.

Okay, what the hell did those drugs do to the Vicar?

What had _Neena_ done to him?

* * *

When they got back, the welcome that Neena was expecting was more or less what they got. Entering _The Unreliable_ with a strangely tranquil Maximillion DeSoto in tow, the Captain was greeted by a duo of Felix and Parvati, leaning against the ship’s large coin mural.

“Captain!,” both cried out in near unison, hurrying over to them—reminding Neena, too much, of children rushing to a guardian’s side after a long time spent apart. As they stood on either side in front of Neena, yammering at the same time was the moment ADA decided to make her appearance.

“Ah, glad to see you managed to return. I can see both of you are now—what’s the term preferred by Humans—zen?” Recalling how, weeks ago, ADA had made a point of blowing Neena’s spot up, the Captain felt a twinge of relief as not being called out as being _post coitus._

Felix spoke, his eyes bright with his unabashed emotion. “I was worried. That weirdo told me to go inside and that she would come back to make sure the ceremony went as it was supposed to.”

 _What? There was no one in that house when we—when it was—when we were done..._ Neena felt their hands tighten, rage bearing through them. It seemed like Max was definitely right. It felt like this Hermit knew exactly what was going to happen to them—her insistence that Felix not be involved—then made a quick exit once she had done the weird work of making two crew members screw the day away, high as damn kites. The only good thing was that she had apparently left a normal mortal’s yearly supply of condoms for them to use for as close to safe sex as two people high on hallucinogens were capable of.

If anything Neena was thinking was on their face, they didn’t get a chance to see the reactions from either of the younger crew members. Max swept up next to Neena, the dismay he pretended at not written on his face. “Aw, no one missed _me_? I know I’m far from the favorite member of the crew, but I at least would have hoped that someone here cared enough to ask me how I fared.”

In spite of how ambivalent they had grown to feel about him, Neena felt eternally grateful that he had taken the heat for them. Both of the people who had been hammering Neena with questions seemed, freshly guilted, to take to the Vicar, apologizing and asking him how he was and how his vision quest had gone. The Captain took the chance to off-load their pack into their waiting locker as well as to take a deep, steadying breath. As Neena turned, about to make an escape to their room, they realized that they were being watched; and not just by ADA’s all seeing eyes. 

Max’s gaze rested on Neena, even as he answered the questions from the younger members of the crew with the practiced ease of a man used to giving sermons. “The journey I went on with the Captain is a personal story, and one day I might share what that experience was like…” he turned, addressing both of the people staring at him, finally unlocking his gaze from Neena. “But I wouldn’t count on it.” He ended it with a strangely—endearing?—smile

Parvati clasped her hands together, as if she meant to plead. “Oh, please, Vicar Max, I’m _dyin’_ to know what you both found. You look… so at _peace_ right now.”

_Based on what I know of you, girl, I don’t think this road to paradise is the one you would be excited to take with someone else._

Neena felt like the room had suddenly grown far too hot, their clothes seeming to cling even tighter than they normally did. As Neena started to try to slink past the group she was surprised by another rarity. Max laughed, the sound almost impossibly warm, lighting up his voice as he spoke. “What I experienced indeed calmed me, brought me to a peace I’ve never known. It’s something I’ll have to meditate on for a while before I can make out its context in full, let alone share with others.”

It was lucky that Neena was already halfway up the stairs because the blush that covered their face was as near to an admission of their shared guilt as nearly anything else could have been. They eagerly shut the door to their bedroom, and, as if afraid that someone might come bursting in at any minute and accuse them of defrocking the Vicar, Neena ordered ADA to lock the door.

As soon as Neena began shucking off their clothes—memory, of realizing that Max had seen all of them, naked, and had folded all of their clothes in preparation while Neena had taken a shower, proved to be overwhelming—ADA interrupted, so much like the voice of some all-seeing God that the order that Max was a member of believed in.

“Captain, I couldn’t help but notice that both you and Vicar Max share the same effects in your vitals.”

In the middle of tearing their bra off, Neena snapped out, “Yeah, it’s called, “we got tricked into doing hallucinogens”.”

ADA paused, then said, “Unless hallucinogenic drugs also mirror the nervous system behavior post coitous, then I would estimate a 99.7% chance that both you and the crew member Maximillion DeSoto participated in sexual activity.”

Neena clenched onto their bra and underwear, teeth tight in their jaws. “Yeah? How’s it any of your concern?”

“I am asking so I can determine the sexual activity I must log in my data banks, regarding any meaningful changes to a Captain’s emotional and psychological status. Especially as it pertains to any other member of their crew.”

“Whoa,” Neena reached, blindly, towards where ADA’s voice resonated from. “You keep a log—of our sex? And can you—keep it down?”

“Captain, the sound proofing in this room, when the door is shut, is so complete that you could yell for help and no one near would be able to hear. Which is why I recommend you keep the doors open at all times.” After that small dig, ADA added, “I keep logs of such things that only you can access with administrative access for your future perusal on your relationships with the members of your crew, as well as any meaningful changes, updates in your behavior and mind.”

 _Yeah, well, the man in question that this is about also happens to be the only person who’d more than likely be able to bypass whatever admin lock you have to read this at his leisure._ Still, Neena, overcome with a new stress and no small amount of guilt, said, “Alright, I need to tell someone, even if it’s just for my own sake.” It felt like they was coming apart at the seams.

“First: was the sexual activity consensual on behalf of both parties?”

Neena gave up and, naked, walked over to their bed, sitting on its edge. “I think we’re both okay with what happened.” O _ne of us seems to be far happier about it. And not the one you’d expect._ “The woman who drugged us—I wouldn’t say that if she had told us, “go in that room and breathe a drug that’ll make you two fuck like rabbits while you hallucinate”, that we would have done it.” _But, wouldn’t I have done it, eagerly, now that I think of it?_

ADA seemed to ponder this—as much as an A.I could ponder—then said, “Good. It was consensual. Are you planning on having further sexual encounters with this member of the crew?”

Neena felt their personal brand of sarcasm merging with their nerves. “If I thought that Max would be up for another go, I mean—” Neena clenched their eyes shut, and sighing, felt their sarcasm die at the thought of what they were now unintentionally playing with. “No. I’m not good for someone like him. I think—what happened must have been my fault. I don’t think we would have ended up doing it, except for the fact that I wanted to do it with him. And we only did it because I... just wanted him to be happy. I didn’t think of what hallucinogens would do to us, alone. And pretty soon the drugs’ll wear off and he’ll get his head back on his neck properly.” _He’ll realize that what we did was a weird thing that we need to put behind us._

“That sounds like a logical fallacy. If he consented to it and seems happy with the results, then there isn’t any need for guilt.”

 _Am I guilty?_ Of course they were. He didn’t know that the person he had done this with was incapable of providing him with any kind of a relationship.

Neena stood up, walking over to their wardrobe, trying to tame the anger—the resentment they had with themselves, their always voracious sexual appetites—as they snapped out, “It’s not that simple, ADA. Human emotions aren’t something you can figure out with… with some logic and reason. Look, I wanted to… be intimate with him, yes, but I don’t know if he wanted that before we did _what_ we did. That makes a difference. And I feel like I kind of ruined him. I mean, do Vicars even fuck, are they allowed to? I don’t know. And I can’t help but feel responsible for us going to some old woman’s house, getting pumped full of drugs, and _fucking the ship Vicar_!”

Thankful—not only for the aforementioned sound proofing—but also for the fact that ADA left Neena alone after they exploded in rage, the Captain pulled on fresh clothes, making a point to draw their chest binding extra tight, eschewing a bra, hoping that a change in appearance from more overtly feminine to adrogynous could somehow push off the memories, the still lingering sensations. As Neena was about to leave, however, ADA finally spoke up. 

“Do you want me to keep this matter private between us?”

Not that they really believed that ADA, who had a mind of her own, would even do it, but Neena, starting to feel a little guilty for blowing up on the A.I, said, “Please. Would you?”

“Captain’s orders. This matter will remain confidential between us.”

Trying to not look suspicious, Neena walked out to the kitchen. When Neena saw Ellie, the woman was sitting at the large table, looking like she was busy with some of her own notes. As Neena tried to walk past to use the restroom, the doctor asked, “How’d the vision quest— _whatever_ —go?”

Neena knew that between this woman and Nyoka lay their biggest chances of having their cover on both their and Max’s privacy broken. Feigning boredom, Neena walked past, shrugging. “We hallucinated. I think I met his dad and Max beat the crap out of him. Something cliched like that.”

As Neena was about to walk out of the room, Ellie said, “You know, I half expected, when the boy came back and said that the Hermit and ordered him to stay out of the ceremony, that what was really going on was that that woman pumped you full of drugs and let you guys screw for over a day.”

Neena stopped in their tracks. Fixing a fake smile on their face, Neena said, “What gives you that idea? Me, and _Max_?” They scoffed. 

Ellie seemed preoccupied with whatever she was doing, but at that she rose her eyes up. “ _Yes,_ Vicar Maximillion. Come on now. The man looks like he’s walking on a damn cloud. Not to mention the—prescient—question of why he smells like he’s been fucking for a day. And those bruises on your necks.” Ellie stared at them meaningfully, a smile teasing at her lips. “I’m a doctor, but more than that, I know what it looks like when two people have _obviously_ been screwing.”

Neena had to fight to keep from wincing in dismay. Of course. _I think this is my new favorite smell._ “Well, I don’t know what you guys think happened, but from my perspective, we just got high and I watched the Vicar have a brawl with himself.”

Ellie blinked, a soft, troubling smile starting up on the edge of her lips. “Thought you said he beat the crap out of his dad.”

Neena gestured at her dismissively, walking away. “I don’t smell like sex, do I? No. My dry spell has continued with me since Sol, yet to be broken. Unfortunately. I don’t know what Max got up to, but I can tell you I had nothing to do with it. Maybe he screwed himself while I was passed out.”

As Neena stalked to the bathroom, Ellie said, “Alright then, whatever the Captain says, goes.”

Neena wanted to believe that statement, they really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie. A palate cleanser after the honesty and intimacy of the last chapter was in order, and I had too much fun writing a supposedly unshakable, bold character taken completely off-guard by the object of their deepest affections going off script. I hope you liked it, too. It's kind of like the game version, but... better?
> 
> I finally broke and had to go back to the only way to actually write a longer project well... I *sigh* had to outline the rest of the scenes and chapters, like I was auditing the end of the story. The good news is that outlining took a hot minute (I stupidly wrote scene outlines on sticky notes--yeah, I now have a messy pile of sticky notes, r.i.p my hoard of them) but it has already paid off in terms of how well and fast I can write! When it comes to this project, I am near the end with finishing writing and doing some revision/re-writes, but the bad news is I am still a few chapters short of the end(!), by my estimations, and in case you haven't seen it, I had to increase my projected chapter count a wee bit. Just wanted to keep you guys in the loop, even though we're QUITE a while away from those last few chapters I'm still pulling out of my ass.
> 
> I hate how I can only process romance and smut through the lens of plot. Why do I do this to myself? WHY.
> 
> I can't segue into this, I'm unending awkward so I'll just come out and say--if you see anything you'd like to mention, please leave a comment. I... eat them. Leave a kudos if you like it so far, hell, if a scene really entertains you, I'd appreciate your kudos. And subscribe if you want to be notified when I publish the next chapter next monday.
> 
> Here's to hoping I finish this in the week to come! Send me all your good vibes, I am looking forward to enjoying re-reading this without feeling the agony of NEEDING TO FINISH IT FINALLY. GAWD.
> 
> love you all!
> 
> \---k.


	7. 6: Curiosity Killed the Captain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A change offers new avenues of unneeded distraction and stress.

Even in the aftermath of so strange an occurrence other things had a way of adding up for the crew of _The Unreliable_. So, almost as a way of alleviating Neena of their troubled thoughts regarding a certain crew member, one thing happened, then another, ad infinitum. One involving a borderline war between a town made of marauders and Neena, Ellie, and Parvati. Yes, they did avoid bringing Max with them. Time away from the source of their stress helped, as did true causes for distraction. 

While they never would have called their life before Halcyon “boring” it was weird to imagine, but there _had_ been a time when Neena’s sense of normalcy didn’t involve brokering peace on colonies between company towns and rebellions, fighting automechanicals, raiders, and absolutely insane wildlife. Oh, and coping with the feeling that they had shared more of themselves than they would have ever imagined possible with a man of the cloth—and not in the way that his church would surely have approved of. What they were doing was focusing on one burning trash fire at a time; and it just so happened that the truly uncomfortable issue of what they were going to do with their ship’s Vicar was pushed aside consistently.

In between errands and jobs meant to put food in the ship, Neena really had no time to meditate about the profound attitude change in the resident Vicar. Or how the time they had spent together alone had woken something strange inside of the Captain of _The Unreliable_.

The time Neena had spent with the Vicar, alone in that room, was known only to the Captain as the Incident, when—if—they ever had a chance to think about it in brief moments of quiet. And, if things went as Neena would have liked it to, they would never get a chance—a reason—to discuss the matter of the Incident with the other person involved in it. Thankfully for them it seemed that the good Vicar had gone into a period of deeply personal soul searching, researching from his library most days.

Drugs, in the days since the Incident—with the exception of a taste of whiskey, when Neena took sparingly from a flask that they kept at their hip—were now, to a once devout partier, completely off the table. Didn’t need any chance to possibly repeat the same thing that had gotten Neena into their mess. Luckily, Ellie was on hand to help with withdrawals, which thankfully actually never came.

As the only other person who could have possibly known what was going on in Neena’s head—constantly—Vicar Max seemed to be content with only the occasional, strange comment that felt like it hinted at an intimacy that Neena had never imagined coming from the man. He had a new habit of deferring to his Captain more often than he may have done before, his once near reliable disdain and acerbic attitude evened out to almost gentle barbs that littered his speech, which felt like he almost only said them to make the others comfortable with his transformation. They were, mostly, jokes about his old self. Meanwhile, Neena had started to wonder if the both of them _could_ go back to things being normal.

As _if_ there _was_ a normal out there for someone like them.

Two weeks and some change following the Incident, they were harbored back at Groundbreaker for much needed unwinding in what passed as close to civilization as Neena was comfortable with. Which wasn’t Byzantium or, for that matter, Edgewater. 

Parvati was off in the heart of the great floating station with the source of her affection, Felix had gone off to do who the hell knew what where, Nyoka was drinking with Ellie at the bar, and it seemed like SAM and ADA were busy, doing things that always felt to Neena like they were questionably intimate. That left them alone in the ship with the only person who seemed to have found a way to shake the Captain up. 

Neena was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the notebook that they had assembled that contained everything they had had to make a note of since becoming defrosted. Proof of that: the notebook itself was a Spacer’s Choice Saltuna factory piece of stationary that they had taken from the desk of the suicidal receptionist back in the factory town of Edgewater. 

Fucking Moon Man, everywhere in their damn life.

Busy reading old entries with a comforting study partner in the first tumbler of liquor they had indulged in in months next to their hand, Neena missed the man making an appearance in the dining area. Their head whipped around and looked at the man as he walked further into the room, gazing at them as he spoke.

“Captain. Something I wanted to ask you.” When Neena, trying desperately to hide their apprehension, nodded for him to continue, Max said, “I haven’t felt like I’m in my own skin for a while now.” Neena swallowed a lump that formed in their throat. He seemed to sense their apprehension—had gotten better at it, eerily so, since the Incident—and, with a warm smile, he said, “Relax, I just wanted to know if you could help me find clothes that would better suit me.”

 _Relax. As if he can see right through me._ “Clothes?”

The Vicar stepped back and motioned to his outfit. “I don’t want anyone seeing me in this and getting the impression that I’m still a practitioner of that religion.”

“ _That_ religion? Vicar, are you feeling alr—”

“Forgive me, but that, in particular, no longer appeals or applies to me anymore.”

Neena scoffed. It felt like their ears were growing warm. “What do you mean?”

Max’s lips tightened. “ _Vicar_. I hate that title."

Neena felt their mouth starting to fall open. “But, I mean—that is what you _are_. Right?”

Max—just Max—looked back at his ship Captain, a soft smile reappearing on his mouth. “I decided to become one, now I can decide I don’t want to be one. Simple as that, right? Especially since there is no big, great plan that’s pushing me towards it. I know that, now.”

Neena choked out something that was supposed to be words. Finally, they said, “V-Max, is there something wrong?”

Max shrugged, the movement a soft ripple in his primly tailored vestments. “Better than I’ve ever been, actually.” He paused, raising a hand up to his mouth as he seemed to ponder something, his eyes bright with thought. “Well, not the _best_ …”

Worried about where this was going, Neena interrupted that line of conversation. “Okay then, what do you need from me, Just Max?”

Max said nothing at first, looking at them with such warmth in his eyes that Neena almost demanded what the hell business he had staring at them like that. “ _Just Max_. I could grow accustomed to that. I think there’s something more to me, something to more of us, than anything approaching singular, distinct systems that are cut off from each other. It’s like we’re all connected. Yeah, I think there’s something to that.” He smiled, a faint, oddly carefree smile that made him seem almost youthful, as if he had not just uttered something so profoundly opposite to what he used to believe that he ought to have gotten whiplash. “But the simplicity, of just being—Just Max—I could do that.”

Neena felt the blush creeping up their neck, growing from their chest. “Max? What. Do. You. Need. From. Me?”

Max blinked, looking as though he were preoccupied with a thought before he spoke. “Could you come with me, help me get myself some new clothes? Things I would want to wear from now on?”

Neena felt themselves nodding as they got up from their seat. Honestly they were relieved; for a minute there, Neena had thought that Max was going to proposition them for sex. Contrary to what they had previously thought—hoped—this strange transformation that the man had gone through had proved to be permanent. And there was something to this choice, following even some of his dreamy, perhaps brain-melted ponderings, that felt right to Neena. That damn science religion had done enough damage to him; if the hallucination (and the sex) had helped break him free of that, then it _had_ been a good thing. 

New clothes, the kind that let him be Just Max, were a good thing. And, who were they to try to stop him from doing a good thing?

“Sure. I’d love to help, Maxy.” Hoping that the stupid pet name would get a rise out of him, when, instead, Max seemed to smile, Neena had to fight back the traitorous fluttering of desire they felt at the sight of that expression on his face. And as Neena walked, meaning to stride past him, they were shocked when Max instead wrapped an arm around their shoulder and kept a walking pace next to them.

Neena kept walking, with the ex-Vicar’s arm draped over their shoulders, knowing that the intimacy was meant in a harmless way, a show of friendship. Albeit one that didn’t seem characteristic of the man doing it. But Max had, after all, been acting _weird_ since the Incident. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to think that he was just more physically forward than he might have once been. Or that the drugs had damaged the part of his brain that dealt with his ability to restrain himself.

Neena found that they had to roughly shove that thought away once it came to them, as the unwanted memory of a pile of condoms and a rosy-faced Vicar came with the thought of Max now having a definite lack of restraint.

Thankfully for Neena, once they walked towards customs, their crewmember pulled his arm away. Whenever Neena had a chance to look at him—trying to make it look as natural as any other time they would have spent time together—they couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was prone to wearing a cryptic, warm smile. 

Had they played some part in permanently burning the once-Vicar’s brain out with hallucinogenic drugs?

As they went past by the Mordet station, Neena found the nerve to ask the man what his plan was. Walking in that soft and deliberate manner as Max always did—when he wasn’t brandishing a shotgun and a scowl—he said, “I was actually thinking of seeing if Gladys Culkelly would be able to help me in this matter.”

Neena had to stop from letting their surprise show on their face. It had not been exactly a secret that Max looked down on Gladys. His religion—at least, his ex-one—lead to the man once, loudly, view the opportunistic smuggler as a person whose whole life’s work was devoted to working outside of the will of the universe as he had understood it. 

_Okay, maybe he really_ has _changed. And not because he got a chemical lobotomy._

Neena agreed, realizing that with the exception of Gladys’ store, they could not imagine another place on the great ship to find clothes that they would imagine Max would want to wear as a very necessary replacement for the vestments. Unless he wanted to wear some company’s uniform or dress like a stevedore.

Neena was thinking about him too much, they decided. Walking with the man this far had been torture enough; Neena could almost imagine they could somehow smell him beneath the overwhelming weight of metal and oil, as well as the collective B.O of the people they passed. His cologne was tasteful, sophisticated, even. Like he was a different breed of person entirely from the rest of everyone else in the Halcyon. Hell, even above everyone that Neena had ever met on Earth.

 _For his sake and mine, I’m going to need to find someone else to exorcize these feelings on, and soon._ If only the ex-Vicar would leave the Captain’s side long enough to rustle up a proper target to focus their very, very bad urges on. Hopefully an older man with honey-brown hair who groomed himself, could keep a conversation going long enough to lead to a horizontal surface.

Gladys greeted the two as she always did, in that affectionate manner that sold the grandmotherly persona that may have actually been real to her. But that impression, as always, had a hard blow dealt to it by the presence of the huge safe that sat on the wall behind her. Oh, and all of the people with assault rifles, standing or leaning in the room. Ready to protect their boss at a moment’s notice. Just like anybody’s grandmother.

Blinking at them for what felt to a paranoid Neena like a moment too long, Gladys said, “And what can an old woman like me do to help busy people like yourselves?”

Before Neena could say anything, Max took the initiative. “I need new clothing to wear, and I had a feeling you would be the best person on this station to ask for help.”

Gladys looked at the man before her face broke into a grin. “Oh, so you _are_ capable of flattery. Why, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you in a thing besides those fine vestments of yours. Why would you need anything else but those, given your station, Vicar?”

Max’s mouth quirked up, and although Neena half expected him to perhaps insist that she not call him that, he said, “I think I need a change of pace. I’d like to wear something that I could relax in, maybe. That would be a good start to a new wardrobe.”

Relax in? _How the hell did Max even learn how to_ relax?

Gladys nodded at him. “Well, I understand that sentiment very well myself. I can do you one better than order you some clothes. In case someone I care about needs something decent to wear, I also have a tailor to make alterations; even make requests for whole new outfits, if need be.” She looked Max up and down, shaking her head softly as if in disbelief. “A fellow like you, who’s been running around and fighting like you have recently, most of your clothes would need to be made fresh or altered to let those shoulders out, I can tell you that.”

Neena couldn’t help it—in spite of the flush of embarrassment before they even did it, Neena examined those shoulders for themselves. Yup, his shoulders certainly _were_ broad, given his mostly slender frame in those vestments; and his waist, if they looked closely at his trousers, were shapely—or at least from what Neena could tell, due to how his clothes did a great job of hiding his leanly muscled frame. 

_Stop. Stop that. Stop that_ right now _._

Thankfully, Max went on, not noticing how his Captain was sizing him up like he was a stripper. “Oh, too bad.” he rose his half-curled fist to his chin. “I was hoping that I could find something more… fitting to wear today.”

Was Neena imagining it, or did Max seem to be in a hurry to lose those vestments?

Gladys smiled. “Now, there’s no reason to despair. I always carry the essentials of any good wardrobe for my own boys, most of whom, like yourself, need something that will fit a man used to physical work,” she nodded to the people surrounding her, who kept a respectful quiet. “so I can promise you, Mr. DeSoto, you won’t walk out of old Gladys’ without something nice to wear out.”

Neena seemed to find their voice. “So—you mentioned you had a tailor?” Did their voice sound hoarse or were they just imagining it?

“Yes. David’s office is actually just above us—” Gladys motioned to one of her aforementioned “boys”, who nodded and walked out of the room. “He’ll arrive shortly. But, here,” She produced a key, motioning for Max to take it. “I keep a nice selection of essentials in that closet over there.” She nodded towards the far side of the room, to a large upstanding metal wardrobe. “I’ll have Leonard show you.”

Leonard, a man who seemed to be unable to smile, gestured for Max to follow him. Fixated on watching Max go about changing his whole image, they were surprised when Gladys asked them, “So I assume that you’ll be wanting the same services from David?”

Neena blinked, looked at the woman who seemed to be examining them with no small amount of joy. “What? Tailoring, you mean?”

“No. I mean, getting your measurements, so I can order you some decent clothing as well.”

They scoffed. “Me? Why would I need anything new to wear?” Not since Neena had left home so very, very long ago did they make it a point to care one bit about what they wore, besides their underclothes and armor. Of course, recently, it was more about binding than enhancing the shape of their tits. As if by hiding their body they could do a better job of ignoring everything that wished they didn’t feel.

One of Gladys’ eyebrows rose up. “My dear, you’re the Captain of a ship and a crew that’s likely going to end up in our history books one day. Don’t you think you ought to _dress_ the part? And besides, I think Maximillion would get a kick out of seeing _you_ dressed up as well.”

About to ask Gladys what the hell Neena was supposed to care about what _Maximillion_ thought of how they looked, the sound—of fabric sliding off skin—brought their attention to the cabinet on the other side of the room.

Max had undone his vestment, was sliding it up, off of himself, baring his side and back to Neena. Even though he was wearing a tank top beneath his typical blue-purple vestments, it rode up, pulled partially loose of the prison of his waistband to reveal the sight of pale butterscotch-colored arms and the top of his chest that peeked through the front of his shirt. He had a light sprinkling hair in the center of his chest. 

The sight of him managed to kill any thought that Neena might have had in their head.

Wait—he’s going to undress, in _here_ ? _Maybe he does have brain damage._

Gladys forced Neena’s attention back by softly clearing her voice. “I’ll tell you what.” The smirk on the older woman’s face felt too pointed for Neena’s taste. “If you let me pick some nice things for you to wear—nothing feminine, but nothing that hides your beauty—I’ll only charge you for half of Mr. DeSoto’s new wardrobe that I’ll order.”

Neena stared, incredulous, at the woman. “You’d do that?”

The smile on Gladys’ face turned more sincere. “Call it—returning a favor. You’ve done a few for me already. And I’m a sucker for moments like these, in spite of what some people might tell you.”

About to agree without thinking of what she meant by “moments like these”, Neena was called out to by Max. When they looked back at him, they discovered the man, still clad in his dark purple trousers and shining black boots, now wearing a simple white t-shirt that he tucked into his pants. One that, Neena was quick to notice, clung subtly, but alluringly, to his chest and shoulders. Where his vestments had perhaps pointedly hid even the hint of the definition for his body, it felt like a spell had been cast on him, turning a Vicar into a man. And not _just_ any man...

He held his arms out, letting Neena get a full look at his broad chest. “What do you think?”

 _Why does he care what I think?_ Still, they said, “It looks—looks great.” _Great?_ No need to overdo it.

Max smiled at them—another one of those once-uncharacteristic shows of happiness in a man who had once never appeared to know how to process those emotions well—and turned back to the wardrobe. He didn’t seem to notice how Neena had not stopped staring at him.

Once Neena managed to unlock their eyes from him, they could swear that they could see a gleam of something strange in Gladys’ eyes. Before Neena could even think of asking the woman just what the hell she thought was going on, the head of the Fence said, “Oh, and I do believe my tailor is here—David! I want you to meet some friends of mine.”

Neena turned around, realized that they had been too transfixed to notice the new visitor, a stout man who looked cleaner than almost anyone Neena had met in the Halcyon system who wasn’t some Board puppet. As if to press the fact that he was neat, even in his manners, David maneuvered into a bow that might have been half-mock. He smiled at Neena, eyes dancing over their body. _Wonder how many weird ones like me he’s dealt with._

“Hear I have work?”

Gladys called out from behind her desk, now standing up as she greeted the tailor. “I want you to meet the Captain of _The Unreliable_ , one of the last of the independent ship Captains, Neena Castillo. And this is—”

Max walked away from the wardrobe, his vestments folded neatly on his arm as he held his hand out. Without the aid of that distinct long-sleeved clothing on him, the sight of his toned, nearly bare arms made Neena’s pulse beat against their throat like a drum. Seemingly ignorant of Neena’s continued fixation on his body—his Captain was trying to tear their eyes away from the sight of the visible lines of sinew and muscle they could make out beneath the fabric of his shirt—he took David’s hand in his own and shook it. “My name is Maximillion DeSoto. I would be most appreciative of you getting my measurements so I could order some clothing.” It still felt so strange to hear him introduce himself as anything except Vicar Maximillion. Or Vicar Max, if you were prone to brevity.

David made a face, mock-overwhelmed as he glanced around at Gladys. “Where did you _find_ this man, Granny? I didn’t know they made men of distinction with callouses these days! Usually those Byzantium men wouldn’t be caught dead on Groundbreaker without an entire retinue of guards!”

Gladys chuckled softly, walking to stand next to Neena. “Funny you should say, your client happens to be a man of the cloth. Or, at least, he used to be.” 

“Yes, now I’m hoping I can find something new to wear. If you could help me.” Max was masking his irritation far better than he ever would have before, but Neena could still make it out in him. Some old habits and mannerisms of his own, it would seem, might never fully change.

David apologized profusely, grabbing onto Max’s hand anew. “Sorry, I just—my _word_ , you must have such an interesting life story, Father—er, Max—” he cleared his throat, pressing his fist to his mouth.

Next to Neena, so quietly that only they could hear, Gladys said, “This entertainment is worth that discount I promised you.”

Finally, the tailor found his brain, or his good manners, and he motioned for Max to follow him out of the hotel room. As Max turned, about to leave, he looked meaningfully at Neena, as if to say, _come follow me._

Before his Captain could start to walk towards the two men, they were abruptly stopped by the owner of the Fence, reaching over to take hold of Neena. “I think we can let the boys work alone. Besides, I know a thing or two about taking measurements myself. I could get yours while those two talk about your crewmember’s wardrobe needs.” She looked meaningfully at David. “I think a man who seems like he’s lived in a priest’s garbs would stand to reason as being in need of some expert advice on the matter of not only choosing the right clothes, but how to build a wardrobe, given a crewmember of _The Unreliable_ ’s... distinctly unique needs.”

Something flashed in Max’s eyes, and Neena almost expected him to demand to not be separated from them, possibly more than a little uncomfortable with the thought of being lead off somewhere in a den of iniquity. But, nevertheless, the man agreed and walked out of the room, following David.

_He really does seem to have changed._

Almost as soon as the two were sure to be out of earshot, Gladys said, “Now that the boys are out of the room, I wanted to talk to you a bit.”

“About what?”

As usual the older woman gave any direct inquiries with an answer not much more of a response than a Mona Lisa smile. “Let’s get your measurements first. Alright, Jon, fetch my measuring tape, if you wouldn’t mind.”

The man in question returned, holding the key to the wardrobe and the rolled shape of the measuring tape, holding it out for Gladys, who took it gratefully. “Alright. Samir, if you could be a good man and take these notes as I say them to you…”

With a little prodding, Gladys guided Neena through the motions of getting their measurements. When she brushed close, Neena caught how she smelled of paper and, delicately, of soap. If not for the presence of the other people in the room, the experience would have almost felt intimate, maternal. 

Halfway through the Fence said, in between numbers that they told the recording Samir, “Used to this treatment?”

Neena chuckled and shook their head. “No, not for a long time.” 

“Oh, used to getting your measurements taken once upon a time, were we?”

Neena felt a burst of fear as something occurred to them. It seemed, almost, as though this kindly woman were insinuating something. Trying to sound as casual as they could, in a room with the most renowned Fence in the system currently as close as close could be to a very vulnerable Neena with many men holding guns nearby, they said, “I think most people back on Earth had some special occasion where they had to get their measurements taken for.”

Gladys made no sign that she reacted to what Neena said, moving to the opposite side of their body with that tape. In a voice so soft that Neena almost missed the connotation of her words, Gladys said, “We can drop the game, heiress. I know who you are. And I have to say: color me surprised that the last proper heir to the Urraca Farm Union ended up on _The Hope_ under an assumed identity. It’s a pity. I think the name you were born with, Esperanza Urraca, had a music to it that your new one just doesn’t. And a really beautiful irony to it as well.”

Neena stared down at the woman, so shocked at first that they could only let a squeak of air escape their lungs. Here they were, trapped, alone, surrounded by guns, with the only person they had brought with them, alone.

Finally, though, Neena found their voice. “What are you gonna do now?”

Gladys cocked one of her eyebrows at the Captain, a smile forming on her mouth. “I wanted to let you know what I managed to find out about you, mostly to let you know that your past is not as hidden as you might have though—even with Halcyon Holdings working double time to let the backgrounds of the lost colonists of _The Hope_ remain confidential. Really, though, gleaning gossip through the grapevine is a hobby of mine. Keeps my mind active.” With a nod, Gladys got up from where she had been crouched, wiping her hands on her knees. “I would imagine that you ought to know what to do, now that you know that this information is out there for someone dedicated to a truly thorough background check.” When Neena only stared at the woman as if she had grown a second head, the Gladys sighed. “Goodness, you didn’t think that even with almost a century and out of your home system that you were _untraceabl_ e, did you?”

Keeping their voice even, Neena said, “I think you have the wrong person here, Grandma.”

Gladys blinked, a kindly look settling on her face. “Oh, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all have a background we might not be proud of. After all, this is the _Halcyon System_. But like I said—don’t you worry about this information being used against you, at least by old Gladys. You and your crew are practically family, not just here, but to all of Groundbreaker. But your status as under the radar won’t last forever. Won’t last long.”

Neena’s lips tightened. The pounding of their heart was certainly not a sign of how at ease the woman’s confession had put them at. “If I was—hypothetically—born into the Urraca family, then none of that information would be worth much. I looked it up; the farms got merged, bought out and became the modern iteration of—”

Gladys answered for them, almost cheerily. “Spacer’s Choice, which itself is a subsidiary of UDL. Of course, there’s the small question of just how many people associated with the Union ended up in key positions of UDL. There exists a _small_ chance that there is actually someone on the UDL Board that bears some Urraca blood. Or at least nostalgia for that purity of when the company used to be primarily focused on farming.”

With the act that they were formerly playing, of feigned ignorance now forgotten, Neena said, “That’s ridiculous. When Mother and Father died, and I was the only person left from that charred remains of that garbage pyre of a marriage. Abuelo and Abuela only had Father, Uncle Bernardo died before he could have a family. I’m the _last_ person with actual Urraca blood in them.”

When they saw the smile that grew on Gladys’ face, Neena felt their anger evaporate, realizing that they had fallen into a trap. “And that may all be true, but to someone who may see someone who’s the lost heir of what became the backbone of the agricultural portion of UDL, you pose an interesting subject. A smarter would-be abductor would see in you someone that they could use to gain favor with the Board, while a dumber one would frankly think they could ransom you based on your status as a living legend. This century’s very own Grand Duchess Anastasia.” She ended that with an upward tilt of her chin, a smirk growing on her mouth, as if the term pleased her.

Neena was quick to burst her bubble. “Except _Anastasia_ ended up found shot in the back of the head, buried in a ditch. No one would pay a ransom for an orphan with no remaining family. And hopefully no one would be in the mood to give me the same ending as her.”

That smirk never left Gladys’ face. “And to some, you could be worth even more because you _lived_. You lived, and you were thought to be dead, not once, but twice, the second time you were resurrected by none other than old Welles. Some would want to kidnap you, just because your story is so unbelievable. But the bits indeed would be a major pull for a would be kidnapper.”

Neena shifted, uneasy. “Please. Don’t tell anyone.”

Gladys peered at them, examining Neena closely before she said, “I know we all have our reasons for doing what we choose to do, but I don’t think you need to worry about your safety with that lovely little family you have in that ship. I have more than a small inkling that they’d fight with you to the bitter end of this journey.” She paused before she said it, emphasizing her words pointedly. “Especially given the nature of the relationship you have with that man.”

Neena stared at the woman, their hand automatically flying to their chest. “What are you talking about?”

The woman rolled her eyes and laughed. “Come on. You come in here with him, you can barely stand to take your eyes off of him? And the way he treats you now, such a change from how he used to act—”

“I don’t know what you think there is between us, but you’re imagining it.”

That was the first time Gladys looked at Neena with someone approaching offense. “Do you know who you’re _talking_ to? It’s my job to see things, better yet, to know just by looking at something and discover what it is. If you and him aren’t—” She stopped, as though seeing something on Neena’s face that managed to astonish her before she quickly added, “I’m sorry. Obviously, you don’t mean to project this for the world for the moment. That’s something old Gladys can understand.” She smiled at Neena, a knowing glint in her eyes.

 _What kind of tomfoolery did “old Gladys” used to get up to?_ Neena scoffed, wrapping their arms over their chest. “No. No, no, _no_ —I don’t do relationships, and I wouldn’t do it with the _Vicar_ of all people. I’m incapable of falling in love.”

Gladys gave them another look of disbelief, shaking her head as she went over to her desk, muttering something so softly underneath her breath that Neena couldn’t catch it. As she sat in her seat, however, she looked back up at her guest and said, “If you did happen to change your mind on that policy of yours, I would say that as long as he’s as relaxed and open to new experiences like he is now, Mr. DeSoto seems like a more than worthy man to spend a second life in Halcyon with.” Before Neena could try to deny the odd proposition, Gladys said, “You choose to live your life like however you’d like, don’t let me or anyone else try to stop you, but you should always remember that choosing what makes you happy is usually the better choice. Take it from someone who’s made many choices in their past they’d love to get a second chance at.”

Neena felt humiliated, as if they had been dissected like some science project, all in front of an audience. Their face burned in shame and anger. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.”

And, of course, Galdys knew how to try to alleviate any unhappiness a client of hers may feel. “I truly am sorry if I offended you, Captain Castillo. I thought you should know what I discovered about you so that you won’t be surprised if someone outside of your ship tries to put an end to you and Welles’ scheme. And,” she looked meaningfully at Neena. “You should know that the way you two look at each other would bring anyone with any perception pause.”

That worked in making Neena feel at least a little bit guilty. “Welles—Phineas—he doesn’t know who I am—who I used to be, does he?”

Gladys chuckled. “How am I supposed to know? But I’d be willing to bet bits that if he had known that the person he was trying his first run of experimental procedures on was a living legend, he would have thought differently of it.”

Neena sighed. “I just—I don’t relish the thought of him finding out that my family might have had more than a little bit to do with the stranglehold that the Board has with Halcyon.” Lord knew that the man always made a habit of trying to dissuade Neena from ever trusting anything even remotely with having to do with them. Little did he know that they had a previous prejudice against the amalgamation of corporations who more or less owned Halcyon. More than a few VERY strong issues with them.

Gladys let out a snort of laughter, leaning back in her chair. “If he knew what he had with you, Welles would have undoubtedly saved you for once he thought he perfected his treatment. Oh, I can only imagine the look on his face, when he finds out that the savior of _The Hope_ is a runaway heiress. Like some old serial.”

 _Yeah, and to hear Gladys continue with that line of thought, a runaway heiress with a defrocked, shotgun-wielding Vicar for a boyfriend._ Neena held their hand out, already feeling a headache starting from even thinking about what Gladys was insinuating. “Don’t—don’t say things like that. If things go well, I never want anyone else to find out about this.”

The woman gave them a pitying smile. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Now that I have your measurements, how about you tell me the colors you like to wear? David’s not _exactly_ used to creating wardrobes for an heiress, but I think you’ll have a hard time finding anything better quality, outside of Byzantium...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first want to mention someone who's helped me with some valuable feedback for what's been posted-- Other K, thank you SO MUCH for what you've shared with me, I will be getting back to you with specific questions soon. Feedback is and at least ought to be invaluable to a creator no matter what step in their journey they are at, and while I've been peevish about seeking out feedback for a non OW of mine, I now see the value of getting feedback on anything I write. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, even though I know Max isn't catnip for you like he is for me.
> 
> I was inspired by editing/re-writing this chapter until my eyes bled, and I re-wrote the story summary to showcase the mood and emotion of this piece, especially to make it stand out. I hope I did a good job!
> 
> I have decided to use writing the last of this story as my proto run for using Scapple, which is software I have recently warmed up to. I think I take fan fiction a little too SERIOUS, but how the hell else could I write but seriously? 
> 
> As for this chapter, I as I previously mentioned, I swear I've written and re-written this way too damn much. I've honestly gotten so tired of this scene I will be happy to only look back at this in a few months! I think it shows a real pivot in direction from the first section of the story. Oh, in case you haven't noticed, some further planning has shown me that this story's scenes could be put into 39 actual chapters, 40 including the teaser. I'll update the chapter count to reflect any changes in that.
> 
> If you have an opinion on the story, I would love to hear it, and a kudos and a subscription to either me or the story would mean the world to me.


	8. 7: Mad(dened) Max

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't you wanna know how we keep startin' fires?  
> It's my desire;  
> It's my desire

When the ex-Vicar came back, it was not much more than a minute after Neena had told Gladys about what they could envision themselves wearing—at least, when it came to the color. It seemed to Neena that the woman relished the thought of picking out the wardrobes for the two herself. Although not, honestly, thinking that they needed new clothes, Neena nevertheless couldn’t help but wonder what this woman envisioned the both of them wearing. And, hell, the sacrifice of some bits, to make Crazy Max happy, was worth it.

As they were about to turn and go, Gladys told Max, “Oh, I almost forgot. A basic shirt needs a nice layer to go over it. Let’s get you a jacket, one that’ll look good on you.”

Max flicked a quick look over at Neena, as though half expecting them to say something. Already more than wishing that this little adventure hadn’t happened, Neena was damn close to telling this crewmember to do whatever he wanted and leave them out of it if it didn't involve arson. Thankfully, Max walked over to the wardrobe from before without flat out asking Neena what they thought, this time helped by none other than the owner of the Fence herself. Neena walked over to the doorway and watched the two talk quietly to each other. All the while, the Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ felt like the eyes of all of the guards in the room were on them. But, perhaps, they were just imagining it, more than a little raw from Gladys revealing what she had learned about them.

Neena watched as Gladys pulled the brown leather bomber jacket out, then turned to rest it against Max’s chest. Even before he pulled the jacket on, Neena felt an answering jolt in their abdomen, as though the sight of the simply dressed man and the jacket had tethered Neena directly to him.

Neena’s attention was snapped back when Gladys called out to them. “How does it look on him?”

Max ducked his head, a self-conscious gesture that felt ill-fitting on the man’s face. “Yes, I like the way it feels, you were right.” He moved slightly in the jacket, and Max looked like he didn’t feel wholly right in it. Couldn’t blame him; Max had almost solely worn a Vicar’s vestments for many years. He looked, in spite of how he was obviously trying to downplay it, like he didn’t trust his body inside of the jacket.

Gladys turned, looking meaningfully at Neena. “Well? What do you think?”

Neena pretended that they had something to scratch on their face, trying to find all of the cool and removed attitude that they once possessed. Didn’t ever imagine that their cool would get ruined by some older man who had spent a day tripping on drugs with them. Still, they managed to fix a smile on their face and even winked. “New look, a tough guy with a leather jacket and a shotgun?”

Max chuckled—if Neena wasn’t imagining it, it seemed like he was embarrassed by the attention. Or, perhaps, some soft voice in the back of their head whispered, he was excited by it. 

Gladys curtly responded, “Dearie, I asked you what you thought of how he looked for your opinion, not for a joke.”

Neena wanted to smack Max when he bit back a laugh. Still, they answered, “He looks great.” Then, after a moment of hesitation, Neena looked directly at Max and said, “It’s what you were looking for. Different; like you’re a new man.”

It was true. It felt like with every moment that passed, Max looked more like he was meant to wear it. Count on the old woman to pick out the perfect item to match Max DeSoto’s attitude, personality, and the build of his body as if it were meant to come with the man. A man different on a deep level than Vicar Maximillion.

Was there something in Max’s eyes when he looked at Neena, or were they just imagining it? Before Neena could try to figure out what it was, Gladys said, “Well that settles it. I expect the clothes will be ready soon enough, but no telling when David will be finished. The man is an artist with his sewing machine, he will alter and hand make some lovely pieces for both of you.”

Max said, “I truly do appreciate it. I could pay some of it up front now, if—”

Neena interrupted, erasing the spell that, of all things, Maximillion DeSoto in a simple white t-shirt and a leather jacket, had cast on them. “I’m taking care of it. Me and Gladys have a deal worked out.”

Max held his hands out defensively. “Hey, thought I could at least pay for my own clothes, Captain.”

Gladys affectionately tapped him on his shoulder. “Handsome, if I were you, I wouldn’t make a habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Or whatever outdated, old world analogy works in this situation.”

* * *

By the time they left the Stop-n-Sleep, Neena had a singular thought dancing in their head, of going back to their room and finally succumbing to their need for some sort of a substance to take their mind off of the weird relationship they had fallen into with the Vicar they had picked up out of Edgewater. They didn’t take more than a few steps before the man in question touched their arm to stop them. 

“I apologize, but there is a small matter I was hoping to deal with. And I believe it can’t wait a moment longer.”

Neena let out a sigh that had built up in their chest. “Sure, why not? What more is it you need?”

Max seemed thoughtful for a moment, cradling his chin against his curled forefinger and thumb. “It’ll be easier if I just show you—” he snapped his fingers. “ah, follow me.”

Neena let their crewmember guide them, walking over the bridge that separated the two chasms which made up the shopping district of Groundbreaker. The ex-Vicar began to speak, his soft, warm voice working at calming Neena where they may have begun to feel uneasy. He spoke, more than it seemed than he had spoken to them in a very long time.

“I’ve been spending the time since I had our experience in a state of disarray. To be honest, once I might have been frightened by being in an emotional and spiritual state of flux for any length of time, let alone for weeks. But right now I think I might be feeling more alive than I’ve felt in a very long time. And I have you to thank for that. I mean—who would have thought, that taking a strange drug given by a Hermit would lead to me not only discovering that the very tenets of OSI are a complete farce, but that the truth of the universe is enclosed in the very physical form I once taught others—I tried to even teach you—to deem as unworthy in the grand scheme of some ridiculous great mechanism which I thought the universe was comprised of?” 

_ Well, it seems like he’s at least not lost his knack for being long-winded. _

He chuckled, not waiting for an answer, walking them towards the back of Groundbreaker. “It’s a twist of cruelty that I spent my life discarding the joys of the physical world, believing that it harms the livelihood of my spiritual being; that by  _ not _ opening up and sharing my whole being with this sense of otherness that ties all of us together, I was maiming myself. Halcyon, our original mother Earth—we’re all bound together by our collective unconsciousness, by this chaos that we make meaning out of by carving out our own destiny, but also by remaining tethered to each other. Like how everyone on  _ The Unreliable _ needs each other. Like how we all need you. Hold on, watch your step.”

Neena realized too late that they had been guided to the elevator, watched as Max punched in the floor on the rickety machine. Damn, they had let the hypnotic effect the man possessed do its job too well on them. They had listened to him like a member of Maxillion DeSoto’s flock had once hung onto every word he said. 

Shaking their head as if to free themselves from the feeling of falling under his influence, Neena asked, “Where are you taking us?”

A smile fit on Max’s mouth well. “I’ll show you. This place isn’t often busy—I got the place from Parvati, actually. From what I hear, it’s quite  _ breathtaking. _ ” Before Neena could tell him that he hadn’t answered their question, the elevator’s doors slid open, revealing a nondescript passageway. Neena looked back at their partner, who shrugged at them and said, “You’ll see.”

Neena followed her ship’s ex-Vicar out, walking down the corridor until he reached a specific door. “Ah.” Max dove a hand into his trousers’ pocket, pulling out a lockpick and, before Neena could ask what the hell he thought he was doing on Groundbreaker, of all places, he had already disengaged the lock. Pushing the door open, Max let out a relieved sigh and turned to look at Neena. “Well, going to come with me?”

_ Came this far already.  _ Neena walked into the room after Max, discovered that the room was, indeed, breathtaking. "Oh.” 

At first, Neena thought that the room was filled with the unique beauty of space and starlight. Then they realized: this was an observatory, with the huge wall on the opposite side of the room made of curved glass, edged with cushioned seats that ran its entire length. At first it was almost purely dark, until the sound—of Max flicking a switch on the wall—turned the lights on overhead, making Neena look up in surprise. They turned, looking for a moment at the smirking man behind them before they looked out the window. 

After spending two days at Groundbreaker and previously hopping between landing sites, Neena had not had a chance to really look out of even  _ The Unreliable’s _ windows in what felt like a long time. It was hard to imagine it, given the fact that they had been left to die out in the cold expanse of it, but the stars and even the deep darkness surrounding all of it was beautiful. Breathtaking.

Neena turned to face him, enjoying far too much for their comfort the way that the soft, cozy lighting seemed to accentuate, highlight him like a golden aura. He had quietly snuck up closer to his Captain. Then Max began to softly speak. “Apparently this used to be a very popular room in the station. For couples, especially. Supposedly, the Board was dismayed by the jump in pregnancies on so small of a colony—one not controlled in any way by anyone on the Board, mind you—and when it was found out that this room in particular was a major cause of pregnancies made aboard this ship, they harassed Junlei until she had it locked off to the public. That being said, I’d venture to think that even the Groundbreaker’s queen knows that they need to keep a control on the amount of babies they have up here, maintain a certain expected amount of their people.”

Neena shivered when he said that, even though the implication of this room had been summarily described in as dry a manner as though he was planning on writing an Anthropological essay on the topic. “So, why bring  _ me _ here, though?”

Max was silent, then he walked up, until he was standing a touch away from Neena. “Well, you see—” He stopped, abruptly, then the facade, of control, of calm, broke. “Hell, I’ve been thinking about this for too long now. I don’t want to overthink more than I already have no choice but to always do. I am not… that is to say… I’m not any  _ good _ at this sort of thing.” He gazed at them, the frustration clear on his roughened, handsome face. “Do you still find me to be desirable?”

_ Do you still find me to be desirable?  _ Those words felt like a rhythm that hit, time and again, over and over in their head.

Neena looked at him, feeling almost as though they were in a dream. The kind that involved them waking up with their thighs soaked and frustration bearing down on them. Their cool and noble intentions may as well as never been there, in the face of yawning lust. They answered him honestly, before they had a chance to think of the repercussions, of how it was only throwing accelerant on a fire. “Yes.”

He barely seemed to relax. “Then… Can I kiss you?”

This answer came even quicker out of their mouth. “Please.”

_ Yes. Please. _ As if having, of all people, their ship’s ex-Vicar, kiss them was a favor, like asking him to take their confession or offer them sage advice. 

Max’s earlier, relative calm was a shocking comparison to how quickly he moved, the deep sigh that the man gave as he lunged for his companion, a hand reached up, taking a possessive cup of the side of Neena’s face. 

The kiss surprised them, sweeping the Captain back as the man probed their lips with his tongue. If they were of the right mind to think about it, Neena would have been shocked to realize that a recovered holy man’s idea of a first kiss since the Incident was a deep tongue kiss. 

Letting out a trapped sound of surprise, Neena’s mouth slackened as their lips met around the ex-Vicar’s tongue as it slipped into their mouth. He tasted heady, clean, intoxicating.

Neena, all finesse and once casual energy regarding intimacy seemingly forgotten, almost swooned and lost control of their body. They had reached around, gripped onto his shoulders for dear life at some point. It felt like he was urging them into sinful behavior, Neena thrusting themselves against the man, in love with the taste of his mouth, with his aggressiveness. 

But understanding of what they were doing came to Neena eventually, and the Captain tore their lips loose from their ex-Ship Vicar’s, biting back a cry of dismay at their own behavior. Barely managing to speak, with how their body felt like it was on fire and how they wanted to kiss him as deeply as he had kissed them, Neena groaned, “V—Vicar, Max, what the hell’re you doing?”

He hadn’t relinquished his hold on the side of their face, the pads of his fingers rough, the weight of his hand warm on Neena’s face. “Something I haven’t spent a day not wishing I could be doing instead of anything else for too long.” He rolled his eyes, a hint of a smile quirking up the side of his lips. “I won’t chastise you for it this time, but I expect you to start calling me  _ Just Max _ .” His voice had a hint of good-natured sarcasm, the kind they were now used to from him. It did something odd, almost anchoring his ship’s Captain to reality after he had just tossed them into complete confusion.

Neena knew that if they were a good person, they’d take his hand off of the side of their face. Even though they were a proudly vulgar person, some part of them believed that the fact that their sex had been done in a near hallucination that they had a difficult time sussing any detail from had been a welcome, saving grace. 

And Neena should tell him—hell, they didn’t know. Did they want to do  _ this _ , with him of all people?

What a stupid fucking question.

The Captain went in for it that time, tongue kissing their ship’s ex-Vicar, taking the chance to wrap an arm around his shoulders. Drinking in his smell deliciously intermingled with the dangerous scent of the leather that was wrapped around his back and shoulders, the feel of his frame pressed against them, borderline becoming intoxicated in the way his lips and mouth tasted, the way his large mouth felt against their own. The taste of a fallen holy man, complete with a unique mouthfeel and richness as well as far too smooth on the tongue, a sensation that Neena might have gotten too eagerly drunk off. Lost all control. 

As Neena disengaged their kiss, not daring to look into his eyes, instead dreamily looking at the man’s really just lovely lips, they could hear themselves say, “Well, I didn’t know you felt that way, Max.”

His lips drew taut and he said, “I think I already know the answer to this, but can you tell me if you remember that time we spent together?”

Neena gathered their courage and looked him in his eyes. Deep greens were now bright, attaching themselves to Neena’s own, reminding the Captain, strangely, of the first time they had met the man. How he had looked at them, so full of hope, hungry for someone he deemed worthy of speaking with.

Neena had no choice but to take a step away from the man, disengaging their arm from where they had taken hold of him, needing the space to think. Their lips tingled with a need that was met with the heavy, hard ache of their clit. They shook their head. “In bits and pieces. I think I remember most of it as a—a hallucination. Like, a lot of… I remember it mostly as these little flashes of things, like memories melted into what I assume was reality.”  _ As breathtakingly insane as it would be. _

The relief on his face made something twist and jump in the pit of their stomach. “Oh, good,  _ good _ !” He smiled, his face truly lighting up, his skin reddened, pink. “To be perfectly honest, I was worried that you  _ could _ remember everything that happened and were just… standoffish.” He coughed and in an utterly compelling, vulnerable gesture, swept some of his hair behind his head. “Or that you didn’t want anything to do with me.”

Neena stared at Max, a realization of their own occurring to them. “You… you can remember everything that happened? Clearly?’

A slight, strangely unwholesome smile affixed itself to his mouth and Max’s eyes held an inscrutable brightness in them. “Given all of your bragging for having more experience than me, I can’t help but find it appropriate that I now have memories of our time together that you cannot recall.”

Neena made a frustrated sound in the back of their throat. “I get it, you can remember the Incident—”

“The  _ Incident _ . Is that what you call it?” Max seemed to lean in closer to his Captain, eyes searching their eyes for an answer. “That makes it sound like it was something bad that occurred.”

Neena, their need dampened by their discomfort, took a step backward, a hand grabbing at their elbow. “Well, I mean—we didn’t exactly plan on—on—”

And Max finally said it, vocalized what Neena had been dancing around, had thought, on some level, that this man was also trying to avoid talking about. “You refer to it what you want, but I’m gonna call it what it was. Neena, you and I  _ fucked _ , to put it in your usual nomenclature, and to say the least. We also shared our minds, our whole selves, for twelve—glorious—hours.” When Neena got ready to say something, he stopped them, adding, “If it’s not patently obvious, I am eternally grateful to have had the chance to experience it with you. Even  _ if _ you now have second thoughts about it.” 

If Neena thought—wanted to believe—that he was playing with them, the serious expression on the man’s face told them that he spoke honestly. Max talked of the time they had spent together like how he had once spoken of his sense of Law. Like the hallucinations and the hardcore sex—and only Max, it seemed, knew what the hell else—had been some great  _ awakening _ .

Even for someone like Neena Castillo, as Max himself had previously referred to judgementally for their professed long track record of lovers and fuck buddies, shouldn’t they have been horrified to think of the both of them being drugged, fucking the ship’s Vicar, their own friend, until he lost his goddamn religion? Why in the hell did the—strangely—familiar feel of embracing and kissing him make them ache to fill themselves with the sensation again?

But Neena wasn’t the type of person who was—ever—capable of denying what they wanted. Even if it was with the man that they had been tricked into spilling all of their darkest fantasies inside of, corrupting him.

But, looking at Max now, he seemed an awful lot like a he was just a man who wanted intimacy, the kind that Neena craved, ached until it ate them up from the inside. Not like the reserved gentleman who spent his time alone in quiet contemplation of some grand equation, or in the beauty of a Fibonacci sequence, like he once had.

_ But was he—ever— _ happy _ then? Did he ever know what it felt like to be truly carefree? To know what it's like to be intimate? _

Neena shut their eyes, took in a deep breath and clutched, desperate, to the last vestige of control they had in their legendarily short supply. They found that the thought of looking into those deep green eyes, eyes set in the face of a handsome man who wanted them, even if he didn’t outright say it, was too difficult.

After all, even if he didn’t know it, Neena was just going to break his heart if he kept trying to pursue a relationship with them. 

“I hurt you, Max. I went into a journey into the depths of your soul and I brought my personal baggage with me. I can’t shake the feeling—it’s my fault for what happened.”

He was silent, and in that brief period of time, Neena imagined that he would admit that his Captain—the person he had trusted to guide him through his experience with the hallucinogen—had altered him, turned him into someone he wasn’t. After all, what business did a man who had his pride, a quiet, reserved manner, and a startlingly keen intelligence, have, with a mess like them? Someone who couldn’t offer him anything approaching something stable, safe?

Instead, Max again surprised Neena by crossing the short distance between them, wrapping his arms around Neena—right where the shivering Captain wanted to be—and, only when Neena looked up at him did he speak, so softly his voice barely rose above a whisper, “I think you harbor some mistaken impressions of me. I never did much to help, but you’ll have to forgive my old self; I was in the midst of a massive case of denial. And I was  _ real _ angry. Mostly at my biggest enemy: myself.” He surprised Neena again as the Captain became aware of the man gently swaying with them in his arms, a subtle, almost dance-like rhythm that fed the strange fire that burned in their chest. “Let me take as much time as I need to, rectifying your image of me, who I really was before we made love.” He stared into his spellbound Captain’s eyes, leaning in until Neena thought that this man, who was supposed to be the pure soul among the pair, was going to kiss them, and said, “You’re not the only person who walked into that room with a heavy yearning in your heart.”

Neena felt like they had been rendered stupid, doped up on his smell, on the emotions that tore through them, like they were some naive girl afraid that the hunk holding them was going to kiss them, or worse, was going to let them go. Only; this was the older man that had once been their ship’s Vicar. And they were Neena Castillo, as Gladys had so recently put it, a forgotten heiress who was only ever once good at running away from everything and potentially endangering everyone on their ship.

But none of those concerns felt important in that moment. Their mouth opened, and nothing came out until Neena said, “Whuh?”

Max’s eyelids slid halfway closed over his eyes, hiding the expression that filled them. If Neena didn’t know any better, they might have thought that this surely inexperienced man was successfully seducing a person who was used to _ being  _ the seducer. He never stopped swaying his hips, leading Neena into a hypnotic movement that they only just began to realize felt like a subtle mimic of something they had once known all too well. 

“I can see you question the strength of my resolve. I’ll say it until I’m hoarse, if need be, but when it comes to  _ you _ , Neena Castillo, I want the chance to show everything that I’m capable of. I regret nothing, and if you’ll have me, I want a chance to try this.”

“What do you mean?”

Max had hooked his hand underneath Neena’s chin, lifting their face towards his until the Captain could feel the soft beat of his breath on their lips. “We can take it slow. Slow as you’d like me to. Still enjoy kissing me?” Neena nodded, and before they could realize that the man did not mean to elaborate, he closed the sinfully close distance between them, lips closing over his Neena’s.

When they finished, Neena realized that they had reached up, grabbing onto the back of Max’s neck. He may as well have branded his lips over his Captain’s own, left Neena’s trembling. 

Unable to do anything but stare at the beautiful hollow in his throat, Neena cried out, “Oh, damn it.” 

Neena knew that they never could stop at  _ just kissing.  _ And something inside of them whispered that this man, who teased at knowing everything about them, understood that as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE!
> 
> I've been shoring up the chapters to come, and I saw what day it is and realized that it happens to be a very Halcyon-like holiday: one that is completely arbitrary and corporate created, made to push people to buy stupid crap for each other, but does have an odd relationship with a very sincere need for intimacy. Or at least, a need to get it off. Both of which, I can obviously sympathize with.
> 
> What better way to celebrate than with my own version of those cheap 50 count valentine's day cards I used to go to school with; a surprise upload. And with no sex. Yet. (I think the comparison really makes sense, with that taken into consideration)
> 
> Don't get used to it, kids, this well has to last me till I can get through revisions on another story and MAYBE go back to my OW in the next aeon. And we still have a lot of angst and smut to get to!
> 
> Celebrate this corporate created holiday any way you please, even if you want to ignore it. Right there with you, sis, any way you want it. Fuck the snow, fuck the cold, fuck jewelry ads. Fuck the monogamous/matrimonial normative feel to this day. If you have partner(s), great. No partner(s), great as well. Shine on you crazy goddamn diamond.
> 
> Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Next chapter upload on monday!
> 
> (chapter summary are the opening lyrics to "Danger! High Voltage", by Electric Six)
> 
> \---k.


	9. 8. Some Weird Sin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, I never got my license to live;  
> they won't give it up,  
> so I stand at the world's edge.  
> I'm trying to break in,  
> Oh, I know it's not for me.  
> And the sight of it all,  
> Makes me sad and ill  
> That's when I want...

Surprising Neena, Max had simply ended that last, defining kiss by telling them that he thought it was time to return to _The Unreliable_. 

The Captain of _The Unreliable_ would have thought that sharing a confession with a holy man should have led to a _lessening_ of stress. If that were the case, then either of the parties involved had _royally_ screwed up the whole concept. And, proof of the effects of what they had done was how that night found Neena laid out in their bed, wide awake. Their whole _body_ , in fact, felt wide awake. Abandoned.

Any other person that Neena wanted would have found them banging on his door, flat out asking if they were ready to put each other out of their misery. The field of feeling this way, for a _friend_ , however, was a completely new one to play in. And Neena would have done almost anything that night, just to know if it really was worth playing on.

* * *

It could have been easy to forget the bizarre time spent together from the day before, especially given the fact that the man hadn’t followed up by coming into their room at night, sending a terminal message; anything, really, to show that he was as distracted by what they had done together as Neena was. And then there was breakfast.

Shuffling out of their bedroom the next morning Neena was struck by the smell of it in the kitchen. Breakfast, an honest, real meal served at its correct time, in _their_ kitchen. At first they had thought they were imagining it. Then, walking up to the long hall, Neena saw most of their crew in seats, eating. Entering the room, they caught the tailend of Felix crowing out happily, “Oh, wow, Max, I didn’t know you could cook this good!”

Most mornings, the crew members of _The Unreliable_ ducked into the kitchen and ate something pre-prepared, or else gobbled down leftovers from whomever had been on dinner duty last, if there was anything left. 

Or if the person who had cooked last had had any culinary skills to speak of. 

Neena glanced down at the table, found that there was indeed a spread on the table. Fruit, french toast… souffle?

Neena must have been staring at the table, because they missed the chef of the meal walking past them, resting a gentle hand on their shoulder. When Neena jerked at the unexpected touch, they felt guilty, realizing that they had expected him to perhaps touch them more intimately. Thankfully, it seemed like the instinctual reaction went unnoticed by the rest of the crew. 

Some of this behavior from him _was_ becoming more the norm for Max; after all, just a few days ago he had calmly told Felix that he loved the young man like a son. And had hugged him. Or how an innocent comment that Parvati had made, about how, if Max was feeling a little sore due to his age, that he had nothing to worry about; that she and the Captain would be there to take care of him, had been met from the man with a sort of bemused agreement that his body wasn’t quite what it used to be any longer and that he was thankful to have such kind _young folk_ to see to him.

It had taken a lot for Neena to not blush, probably as bad as if they had a fucking rash, because they had thought, immediately, of just _how_ they had wanted to _take care_ of the old man in question. And that was _before_ they knew that he harbored a similar line of thought for them.

Smoothly, Max said, “I was up early. Thought I could spend the morning a little more... productively than I might once have, reading the same old books, like I was going to find some sort of an answer that never would have given me any happiness anyway.” He didn’t remove his hand from where it rested on Neena, and to everyone else, it probably just looked like the reformed ship’s counselor was being lightly affectionate with a friend. With his other hand, Max motioned for the Captain to take a seat, where a serving of everything had been portioned. “Please. Sit.”

Neena took the seat, grateful when he finally took his hand away. Well, maybe not _grateful_ ; just relieved to not have the weight of Max’s touch on them in front of the whole ship’s crew, with the physical effects of his closeness not putting such a strain on the mask of normalcy that Neena had to wear.

God, he smelled good, and his food, it smelled—

Neena took a bite, hoping that moving, acting, could alleviate the tension that itched up their flesh. As they cut up a slice of the pastry that Max had portioned on their plate, Neena realized as soon as their tongue touched the bite that this food was better than anything that they had had since re-awakening in the Halcyon system. Maybe even in _years_.

Depth. God, his food had _depth_ , complexity to it. Spices?—wait, Neena didn’t even know that they had spices on _The Unreliable_ to speak of. Not a natural chef themselves, they had never made much of an effort to cook. Or maybe it just was that none of the rest of the crew had made it a point to try to find or even use any spices, when everyone’s usual intention during Cook Duty was to make something edible for everyone to eat, not try to make something appetizing. Hell, Max hadn't bothered to pull anything fancy out like _spices_ before!

Making something that had not been pre-made, and more than that, was actually delicious, was like the man had declared something by even cooking an elaborate meal when it wasn’t even his turn to cook. 

It felt like a million and one thoughts were racing through Neena’s mind, which they masked by eating the beautiful food. Texture, freshness—it almost felt to them as though the food in their mouth was an act of sensuality of its own, as though the man who had cooked it was teasing their palate—

They almost stopped eating, now in the middle of their meal. Trying to look as calm as they could, Neena looked up from their plate and found him, sitting in his usual seat on the opposite end of the table. Max seemed to have gone back to reading from the tablet that he had been using almost religiously since the Incident, a thoughtful expression on his face, chin propped up with a fist. Nothing special about the hunky older man who had the most beautiful green eyes Neena thought must surely exist in the Halcyon System.

Neena had to disengage the surely ludicrous notion from their head. How in the hell could _cooking food_ be construed as some attempt at seduction? This had to be an attempt by the man to further endear himself to a crew that he had once spent too much time alienating himself from. 

Right.

Being the last person who had begun eating, the rest of the crew finished their meals and most gave the chef a thank you before they went back to doing whatever they did during the day. Eventually in the kitchen it was just Neena and Max. 

As Neena finished the meal, getting up to place their dishes in the sink, they were stopped by the quiet, contemplative voice of Max.

“What’d you think of the meal? I would like you to think I pulled it off effortlessly, but in truth putting this together with such an absence of ideal ingredients ended up posing quite the trouble for me.” 

Neena turned, saw that the man was still sitting in his chair, his back facing Neena at the sink. 

They swallowed a thickness that had formed in their throat. “You didn’t have to go to all of this trouble.”

Max turned in his chair, those beautiful green eyes staring directly at Neena, revealing too much and barely anything at the same time. “To the contrary; cooking for you was nothing but a pleasure.”

Neena spoke quickly, as if trying to erase the connotation of what he said. “For the crew, you mean.”

He blinked, but not before Neena could see something mischievous in his eyes. “Sure, whatever you say, Captain.” God help them, but the mischievous Max seemed almost sincere. Before Neena could make an escape from his gaze, from eyes that felt like they were pulling them in, Max said, “I really _do_ want to know what you thought of it.”

Neena’s whole body felt alive, trembling from just the soft weight of his words. “What do you think I thought of it?”

Max held a hand up to his chest. “I just—it would _really_ do this poor old man good, to hear you say it.” He smiled pleasantly at them, only his eyes revealing something perhaps wickeder.

Neena glared at him, frustrated. “Lose the “poor old man” angle. You know this meal was goddamn good. It was fussy and indulgent, and you probably stayed up all night making it. That sound about right?”

Max tilted his head, looking at them as if he were examining them, curious. “Just wanted to hear you say it, my _Captain._ ”

* * *

Neena had almost managed to put the oddly—erotic—feeling that eating Max DeSoto’s delicious food had given them when they managed to find themselves in yet another unusual situation. 

As it turned out, whether it was a side effect of either Neena’s old lifestyle, the hard-living that came with being the Captain of _The Unreliable_ , or perhaps even from having been the first human test subject of Phineas Welles’ science experiment, but Neena had developed an embarrassing muscle weakness and pain that came and went in their back. Up to that day, it had never acted up significantly, enough to make an effect on their machismo or the confidence that they projected.

And then some goon threw them against a metal wall and Neena hit the hard ground, which they bounced back from by immediately leaping up, ready to pound the offending marauder into next tuesday. But once Neena stood over the now dead guy, grinning at the always welcome feeling of having administered some tit for tat, they felt the straining pain in their back give a horrific spasm. 

The world went black from pain. When Neena came to, they were half-crouched, half sitting on the ground, the only thing keeping them from collapsing was the fist that they had balled up to support them.

The sound, of someone’s voice, brought Neena out of their fugue. They looked up and saw the familiar form of Ellie as she was approaching them with something in her hand. Another voice, belonging to the fast-moving shape that was undoubtedly Max, was breaching the distance between him and Neena. They wanted to tell their two crew members that they were alright, but nothing came out of their mouth. The spasming pain in their back left them staring at the two with their mouth hung open, limply. It was the first time that they had ever felt weak in front of anyone on their crew.

They came to as soon as the ship’s doctor injected their Captain with something, which felt like it unlocked whatever had tensed and spasmed up in Neena’s back. As Neena sighed in relief, Ellie, in an uncharacteristically worried voice, said, “What the hell is up with you?”

* * *

Neena discovered, once they had been herded back onto _The Unreliable_ and into their own room for an examination, that they had sustained an injury with their back at some point, which had been exacerbated by the blow. The muscles in it were locked up, and there was no telling if some other injury or sudden impact to the area would lead to permanent injury.

The irony, that they were borderline half carried back to their ship with the help of the “old man” that Parvati had innocently assumed was physically weak, didn’t escape the bruised ego of the ship’s Captain. Besides giving them some drugs to let them relax for the night—which Neena had not indulged in in what felt like a very long time—Ellie mentioned that they ought to take their Captain to Byzantium, to find a pricey masseuse to relax their back before Neena managed to hurt their back for good.

In spite of the grumbling that they had given the Byzantium-born doctor, eventually Ellie left Neena, laid in the bed on their stomach to ponder what they could of the good doctor’s recommendation, as well as if the dose she had given them would do its job on someone who had surely developed a tolerance. Not soon after Ellie left, and the indeed generous drug cocktail that Ellie had given them was starting to kick in, Neena heard the door softly open. 

Barely lifting their head out of the pillow, Neena hoarsely asked, “Who is it?”

Somehow they knew who it would be, even before he said a word. “Nothing to fear. It’s just an ex-member of OSI, here to see what help I can provide to a member of my ship’s crew.”

Starting to feel looser from the drugs, and finally getting over the humiliation of eating shit as hard as they had, Neena said, “Oh, wow, what can my best friend do for me today?”

Max chuckled, and Neena could hear his boots hitting the ground as he closed the distance between them. “I could do without the sarcasm, but I’ll take what I can get these days. I actually came to offer my services in a new skill I’ve been researching.”

Neena chuckled into their pillow. “Please. I think the only person on this ship I’d even _remotely_ want to operate on this broke back of mine left here a minute ago.”

When he spoke, Neena realized that he was even closer then. “No, I don’t want to perform anything like surgery. I actually came to see if you would be amenable to letting me massage your back, see if I could provide you with some relief.”

Starting to get high, on the combination of the drugs that they had been given, as well as the thought of Max touching them, Neena said, “ADA, can you make sure no one can come in here, and can you stop watching me?”

With what Neena thought they could hear tinged with a light edge of sarcasm, ADA said, “As you wish, Captain.”

They almost regretted saying it, even though they vastly preferred this to having someone come in and see their ex-ship’s Vicar massaging their ship's Captain. 

Sure enough, Max said, “I suppose I would prefer the privacy, good thinking.”

Neena almost ordered the man to shut up. They were as vulnerable as could be, and they might have had no real right to accept the help from Max in the form of a massage. But the thought of even the chance of some of this agony and weakness going away—and to feel the sensation of Max’s hands on their body—had Neena, too weakened already, unwilling to push this chance away. Which drive was stronger?

The Captain of _The Unreliable_ wasn’t about to admit to it, even to themselves.

Instead of just accepting this strange offer with any grace, Neena asked, “Massage? You know how to _massage_?” They snorted; an unattractive sound they might have otherwise not made, if only they weren’t riding a high. Time to see what Max thought of drunk and uncool Neena.

Max was even closer this time, until they realized that he was leaning on the edge of their bed. Waiting for something—perhaps for Neena to tell him to touch them, touch them. “I know it’s easy to make fun, but since you helped free my mind, I’ve had a lot of time to learn about a lot of things. I’ve read about the art of massage, and to be honest, it’s just not the same as practicing.”

 _What, exactly, is the ex-Vicar’s possibly totally valid reasoning for researching_ massage?

Neena let out a long, weird chuckle that emerged from the back of their throat as their abdomen pooled with unwanted, yawning, aching lust. “You call wanting to rub your hands on someone _practice?_ ”

Max didn’t say anything, but Neena heard something rustling, could hear Max moving around. Neena thought, for a brief moment, that he was taking his clothes off. Then he said, “I brought something to help. And, Captain, this is going to be a therapeutic massage, nothing more. I would never dream of anything you’re insinuating while you’re vulnerable and out of your right mind.”

Maybe it was the high, maybe something else aided by ravenous desire, but Neena almost jolted, hearing him admit to something—dare they think about it?— _impure_. _God, how hot would it be if he just took my pants off and fucked me while I laid here, left to moan into my pillow?_

Neena was still trying to forgive their pain-streaked mind for the unwanted sexual perversions when Max said, “But there is the indelicate issue of your shirt. Which I will have no need of, if I am to try to provide you some relief from your pain. Indeed it would be quite the… hindrance.”

 _Of course._ Neena tried to push away the feelings of engulfing desire that took them over as they felt their fingers itch to pull their shirt off. The combination of the drugs, and the pain in their back, made them feel overwhelmed with a desire for some relief from Max’s touch. Both from the healing touch that he claimed he was going to give, as well as from something that he had told them he was not going to engage in while Neena was buzzed out of their mind on pain and drugs. They followed their ship’s counselor’s orders, carefully maneuvering so they could slip their brown shirt loose from the confines of their snug trousers. As they squirmed to free themselves from the shirt, Neena felt their confidence wane, once-uncharacteristic for them. “Not like you haven’t seen all this already, haven’t you?”

As Neena slipped the buttons of their shirt loose, Max, in his velvet-soft, comforting voice, said, “Well, a gentleman wouldn’t make a point of a fact like that, now, would they?”

Neena grinned, the odd flirtation between the two a welcome diversion as they managed to finally pull the shirt off. “If you find a gentleman out here in this Halcyon system, you can divert him to me, won’t you?”

Neena, so certain that Max would have laughed it off or continued this joking, leaned in, helping Neena to pull their shirt off of their arms. And, leaned in closer for a brief moment, the ex-Vicar softly said, “But a gentleman wouldn’t know how to take care of you the way you _want_ to be taken care of.”

Neena almost bolted up on the bed, shocked by the blatant statement and with them now officially shirtless, only with their jerry rigged bindings wrapped around their chest to cover them. Ignoring their obvious signs of shock at his words, Max leaned away, giving a flustered Neena much needed breathing space. “Now we’ll have to deal with the issue of your chest bindings.”

Neena was so used to the things that oftentimes they forgot about the long-used method that they had for dealing with the more-ample than they would have preferred issue of cleavage, which they had had to live with since late middle school. Some part of them had almost blamed the bra they had been wearing the day they had fucked the Vicar, how it had to of accentuated their bust. Trying less to hide their body, and more to deny that they had anything appealing to offer, had been accomplished thus far for them by flattening their chest.

But all it took to undo that work was a simple request from the source of their torment. With a voice that they hoped sounded calm, Neena said, “Ah, yeah, sorry.” Their hands were working at the closure that they had made for the cloth corset, feeling the familiar relief of the binding loosening over their chest. So wrapped up in the situation, Neena realized too late that they were undressing, as if obeying the will of the mysterious man who sat behind them only as they pulled the last strip of the binding off. Finally topless, their freshly revealed skin chilled in the ship’s recycled air. 

_Too late to go back now._ But there was something about how Neena felt about the man they were essentially laying beneath, something that told them that if Max said he would not take advantage of this situation, that he would certainly not do that. Even if everything in Neena—short of them crying out for him to just do it already and put the weakened Captain out of their misery—was begging for something yet more intimate than a healing massage.

Neena could almost feel the ex-Vicar’s eyes on their naked back. They shivered, only partially from the cold of the ship’s air on their skin. They waited in vain for the promised touch—a true tease of what Neena really wanted—and only got Max’s voice in answer. “Alright. Now I’m going to rub something on you. It’ll be cold at first—I’ve tried some on myself, and not in that way, you pervert, I’ve only just tested it to make sure it works well for the task—but it’ll warm up with more rubbing.” He paused, then added with only a slight raise in his voice that hinted at amusement, “okay, I have to admit, _that_ sounds reasonably perverted.” They could hear the man hesitating, and he said, “I know you’re shirtless and it seems like we’re a little far gone now, but if you want me to stop, I’ll stop. I know how you are; you won’t go to any masseuse on Byzantium, but maybe some rest, and, if we can get you to a bath to relax in, then you can feel better—”

Neena squirmed. They were either too wrapped up in the presence of the man behind them while they were shirtless and vulnerable, or, finally laying down and not jostling whatever was screwed up in their back, but Neena felt less aware of the once-radiating pain, was now hyper aware of the new ache that filled the lower portion of their body. 

Trying to not sound as full of hot desire as they truly felt, Neena bit out, “I appreciate the chivalry, I really do, but let’s be honest.” Neena panted, hoped against all hope that he would just think that they were in pain. “I’m laying topless on my bed with my best friend on top of me. And weirdly enough, I guess tripping on hallucinogens and having the weirdest sex with you kind of makes you my best friend, especially with this being the second time you’ve seen me _high as fuck_. My life’s motto used to be to just go with the flow.” They paused, struggling to regain a thought in their head before need took over. “And I’m not some simpering maiden. You think you can do something about my back, big guy? Go for it.”

Expecting the man to continue talking—and Neena would never admit it, but the sound of Max’s voice was calming, relaxing as much as it inflamed the senseless desire that burned through them—Neena almost jumped at the feel of the promised feel of Max’s rough hands, coated in a cool, slick liquid, running against their shoulders.

Oh. _Oh_. Neena bit their bottom lip, hoping that it could stop from letting a pitiful moan emerge from their mouth. But it seemed that they weren’t able to stifle the noise enough, as Max pulled his hands away. 

In a voice that matched the concern of his question, Max asked, “Does it hurt?”

 _Damn it._ Faking a chuckle that sounded, even to Neena, shaky, they said, “I-it was just a little cold.” As they said it, Neena realized that the place where Max had rubbed the oil on them was indeed starting to get warm. Warming massage oil; just what kind of things had their counselor been researching, now freed from the prison of his church? 

Trying to mask their uncontrollable reaction, Neena said, “Really, you studied massage? Who _does_ that?”

Thankfully, Max went back to rubbing the oil on Neena’s shoulders. The combination of the rapidly warming oil and the feel of Max’s rough, large hands, rubbing gentle circles into their shoulders, lulled Neena into a fugue that bled into the drug cocktail that had kindly been provided by Ellie. Neena forgot who those hands that were soothing the painfully bunched muscles in their back belonged to, only aware of the fact that they were slipping into a high while being massaged by a man that they were very attracted to.

At some point, the soothing sensation of Max’s surprisingly expert massage was interrupted by the man’s voice. “ _I_ research how to give massages, alright? Trust me, I won’t crush your spine. And if you fall asleep that would be fine as well.”

Neena lifted their head out of their pillow and let out a soft, “I don’t know if it’s possible for someone like me to drop asleep with a man like you rubbing my naked back.”

Max gave out a soft sound of dismay and pulled his hands away. “I’m sorry, I know, my hands’re far from soft—”

Neena, now accustomed to the luscious, contrasting feel of his rough hands, hurriedly said, “No, no—I can’t fall asleep when a hunk is giving my body attention.” Not high, Neena would have certainly censored saying that; at least, out loud. And some part of themselves, aware of what they were saying, and to whom, took secret joy in getting this confession off of their, well, back.

He chuckled. “You have a strange idea of what’s attractive. But ah, if you don’t mind, I’m going to start rubbing lower…”

Neena’s mind was disintegrating into happy fractals, the burning ache of need in their abdomen becoming a strangely pleasant focus, allowing them to forget the sharp pain of the muscle in their back. Even though they had started to make unintentional grinding motions into their bedspread. “Take as much time as you want.” Forgotten was the need that Neena had to not let on just how much they wanted him, as they said, “You can touch me wherever.” The world had grown to feel unreal, dreamlike, aiding in Neena’s boldness. 

But, making Neena wonder if he had heard them—or if they had even spoke it in the first place—Max said nothing, his hands sliding down their shoulders, pressing and rubbing into their back. That downward movement, close attention paid to more of their body, roused Neena into a semi coherence. If only because the experience of Max’s warm, oiled hands slipping and aggressively pressing swirling patterns into their back felt like they were calling to something that the Captain was desperately trying to bury, deep within themselves. 

But even that amount of barely withheld desire was nothing compared to what followed when Max said, “Alright, time to go lower.”

The feel of him rubbing softened, deliberate circles into the small of Neena’s back left them unable to hold back the stuttering moan, and they jutted their body up, wanting to be closer to those wonderful, big hands.

It seemed that their earlier assurance, that there was no way that they could have possibly fallen asleep like this, was untrue.

Neena came to later, wet as if they had come fresh from the shower—and not just because of the drying oil on their back. Realized that they had passed out, and that the man who had massaged them was sitting in their desk’s chair, smiling in a strange, knowing way at them. Neena started to sit up before they remembered what they were doing laying on their bed as they felt a sharp, answering pain travel up their back. Half falling over in pain, Neena heard the man who seemed to have been waiting for them to come to speak up, his voice a gentle barb.

“Take it _easy_ , won’t you? I never said I could heal anything, I can only hope I managed to loosen up the offending muscle, that it will allow you to return to your full range of mobility soon enough.”

As the pain lessened, Neena looked at the man who had returned to giving them a soft smile. They realized that they were still very much shirtless. 

Where, once, Neena would have rushed to cover themselves—at least in the presence of this man who had thus far proven to be dangerous to their sanity—they instead just carefully maneuvered themselves until they were sitting on the bed, fully exposed.

With their patented winning smile, Neena said, “Well done. This ruse to see my chest worked out as expected.”

Max surprised Neena, flashing his Captain a grin that felt wolfish. “As we’ve already said before: it’s nothing I don’t already remember in _vivid detail._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that massage was as fun to read as it was for me to write.
> 
> And, sorry; I would have posted this earlier in the day if not for some distractions at home and if I didn't have so much damn work dropped on top of my desk at work. If I could, I would much rather dry out and keep writing this instead of doing my day job, honest.
> 
> I'm nearly through a possibly last round of revisions of the story in general up to what I've written. I hope to finish that tomorrow, based on how distracting my partner's going to be tomorrow... I wish I was a night owl writer like most tend to be, I CAN write late at night, but for the most part I do well in the middle of the day or somewhat earlier, prime time to spent with your partner, indeed. In spite of all of this, I've added almost 10k to the whole manuscript in the last week or so, including a whole new scene, which I added a day ago. EDIT: And I went through and added a final re-write to this chapter; against my better judgement, I ended up almost cutting a whole scene out before I posted this, which needed some buttressing and structural additions RIGHT before I added it last night, some of which I didn't manage to revise correctly--FUN!
> 
> And, I know; where's the SMUT? Heheh. I have the smut, but I'll share it when you're ready. For now, the smut shall remain mine. Oh, but it IS coming.
> 
> In spite of that, if you've read this far, as always, I ask that you give me your kudos, leave a comment, and subscribe so you'll know when I update on monday. 
> 
> There's a dog barking outside... can someone come and take it? Please? Argghh.
> 
> (chapter notes were the opening lyrics to Iggy Pop's "Some Weird Sin")


	10. 9: Bohemians in Byzantium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trusting others often means becoming vulnerable in ways you never before envisioned.

With the Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ laid out for two days, insurance that Neena couldn’t do any permanent damage to their back—doctor’s and the Ex-Vicar’s orders—things slid into an interesting feeling of normalcy that was only too easy to relax in. Still, the way the crew acted with them, and with each other, gave a serial loner like Neena a strange feeling of discomfort that they usually ignored by staying busy. No matter what; undoubtedly, Neena felt restless, had been used, up till the day they had awoken in Halcyon, to being on the move. Not having to stay in one place for very long, or for that matter, having to get to know anyone for too long. 

Chance things that never could be. Or earn a stay in jail for their bad behavior and choices. 

Watching as people hung out in the kitchen during the extended downtime; talking, laughing, playing games, was strange enough. Realizing that the once isolated Vicar was now giving  _ actual _ counseling and guided meditations with crew members came as the real shock to the Captain. And even stranger was knowing that there were people who came to ask him for advice or to just offload their personal problems, to _ Max _ . Max: the insufferable prick who once, at least, seemed to be a living, sneering symptom of the Board's poisonous values. 

Not that Neena could hold any of them in real contempt for their choice. After all, if anything, Neena had invested a _ lot  _ more mental real estate in the man more than simply trusting him for counseling. 

As they went through the questionable process of healing up, their crew blew off steam with visits, also, to outposts, checking in with people they had helped, Or in some cases, went to see the aftermath of some things that Neena, never an angel or a diplomat, had fucked up. They learned about the aftermath of some of the places they had, usually, unintentionally steamrolled through with their ship and crew of miscreants, second hand, from crew members who seemed to treat them less, these days, like an antisocial would-be Captain of a ship they had earned by landing on top of the real one, and more like their friend.

As nearly everyone else seemed to alleviate their cabin fever, the near constant in the ship (besides the crew members made of metal) was, of all people, Max. The man had been making a habit of checking in with Neena often, whether they liked it or not. Thankfully, said nothing, ever, of the things that took up almost all of Neena’s mental real estate.

At least, they thought it was a relief.

If they didn’t know any better, Neena might have thought that this ship of opportunistic people had become a strange family. And the least-fitting member of this so-called family was their weakened leader, in spite of everyone’s frequent visits with them.

Besides apparently appointing himself as their babysitter while they were laid out, Max was already a completely different case from the others on the ship. Had made the most dramatic change of heart. At least, it seemed that way to someone not accustomed to having to get along with anyone, used to, instead, living off of their cunning and charm—or by beating anyone’s ass who wouldn’t move out of the way of whatever they wanted. People didn’t normally go from one day to the next with a completely different outlook and attitude, did they? Was this really all because of a drug trip and what seemed like a sex marathon?

Not that they would know, in all honestly. Neena would be fucked if they actually knew what “normal” was; they knew violence and subterfuge, they knew lockpicking, they knew how to  _ use _ people to their advantage. Being a friend, or really, even a competent leader, was basically alien to them, and it was the thought of being open to other people scared the shit out of them; they would have been the first to admit that. Didn’t need the  _ ship counselor _ to tell  _ them _ that.

Max’s declaration of having found his own peace, and the obvious change it had made in his personality, had left the other crew members not only intrigued by the seemingly eternally calm man that had replaced the bitter, judgemental Vicar, but had allowed them to finally feel comfortable with opening up to him. Laughing and even joking with him, or in the case of Ellie, seeming almost disappointed in losing a target whose ego had once been so raw that it was  _ too  _ easy to exploit by poking at him.

It was a new side to see in him, too, like the day Neena glanced back, found him leaning back against a counter in the kitchen, face an all too appealing red as he shared stories of a past he had once been too ashamed to speak of to much of the crew, laughing about a memory of the farm community he had lived in for the first sixteen years of his life. Sometimes these days he didn’t perfectly coif his hair, leaving some messy, errant strands to hang dangerously close to his face. In clothes that actually fit his frame and the heft of his unexpectedly muscular body, Max did look indeed, as he so often joked, like a daddy. Just maybe not the kind he intended to be.

Everyone started to hang out together, be it with card games using stashed drugs and ammo as loot, or with aetherwave drama or tossball nights, with the crew watching programs together, with the older female-bodied members getting lightly buzzed to enjoy either, all huddled up on someone’s bed. It felt like they were having borderline sleepovers almost every night. One afternoon they hung out in the kitchen, making a mess of a casserole and a smorgasbord of sides, inspired by the delicious meal that the ex-Vicar of the group had made days before.

Neena didn’t realize how happy they were, or how they had really been building this tough outer shell during their time in Halcyon until Parvati, her face half-caked in the slimy remnants of the cooked vegetables that she and Felix had been flinging at each other, turned and said, “Captain, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you rightly smile before.”

Felix, who had been chuckling as he swabbed some stringy canned spinach off of his cheek, turned and looked at Neena before the Captain could wipe their own form of unwanted food off of their face in the form of their stupid grin. “Parv’s right; you actually look  _ happy!” _

Neena overdid it, scowling from their position sitting in one of the chairs. “I can fucking smile. I smile all the time.”

Ellie snorted, unphased by the angry glare that she got from Neena. “Oh yeah, you’re a smile factory.”

What the hell was going on—it was almost as though these people considered them their _ friend _ .

And, notably, the ship counselor had kept quiet during the gentle hazing. Although Neena didn’t miss the infuriating little smirk he wore, as he reached past a chuckling Nyoka to take a stirring utensil.

That started a change in the morale on board, one that Neena didn’t want to think too much about. It was only too bad that, when they were alone in their room, there was hardly anything else to think of. Maybe Neena was just imagining it, but it seemed as though the ex-Vicar’s change of heart had become a large part of the glue that held them together—especially as Neena laid in their room, dreaming of being able to walk to the bathroom without having to take each step in excruciating slowness. It was ironic; everyone felt comfortable with this man who wore a simple white shirt more than they ever did with a representative of the OSI who wore immaculate vestments.

In spite of all of that, it came as a relief to realize that they hadn’t been imagining the progress they had been making with healing. Some days it was barely noticeable, how they could hobble around faster and, increasingly, they could take less meds from Ellie— _ if _ they had wanted to. Then came the day when Neena woke up, realized that they felt stiff but that the usual tearing, throbbing pain had ceased to exist whenever they moved, tugging the offending muscle. As Ellie had said herself; it was incredibly lucky that it had not been a slipped disc, as a muscle  _ could  _ be healed, where a disc would mean that Neena would have spent the rest of their time as Halcyon’s rabble rouser standing behind the others in fights. 

Not exactly imposing or titillating. And then it would be said that there were officially  _ two _ old bastards on board  _ The Unreliable _ .

Aside from the promised trip to the spa on Byzantium, which Neena had had no choice but to go to, the partially willing hostage of their crew members, the Captain spent the rest of the last day healing allowed to walk in their ship, taking it easy on the stairs. They could walk again, alone; slower and awkwardly, but they could  _ do _ it.

Hell, Neena supposed they should have just been relieved that no one had made SAM carry them around, like some unwilling movie starlet from one of the crew’s aetherwave dramas. And, to their disappointment, it seemed like Ellie was less than willing to give Neena the amount of drugs that the good doctor had provided only a few days prior, no matter how Neena bemoaned that their once collection of drugs had been confiscated during the time they had been in delirious pain—as well as the ones that Neena had lost in crew poker. The rotten bastards. The real issue, to them, was how being sober left Neena with more than enough time to wonder how in the hell they had let an ex-holy man, of _ all  _ people, get the biggest, most humiliating drop on them.

Made them come the closest they ever had with monogamy, as they fantasized ceaselessly about the cold-blooded, well-mannered man who had taken the place of the bitter asshole they had, once upon a time, come very close to leaving in the terrible company town they had met him in.

Days earlier, they had expected that the man would have finally put them out of their misery once they had come out of their drugged haze, sitting half-naked on their bed and as close to begging for someone to fuck them than Neena had ever been in their whole life. Max had shocked them when he only came over, placed a chaste kiss on their forehead as he reached over to find the Captain’s shirt, which had been long forgotten on the edge of the bed, and gently worked the offending article of clothing down Neena’s over-sensitized body. As Neena had stared, stunned, at the man who had given them a massage that had felt more strangely erotic than any abrupt fuck that they had ever had with a near-stranger, Max patted them gently on their shoulder and motioned to help Neena lay back down. 

Since that night, Neena had the distinct impression that, for the first time in their life, they had absolutely no idea what the object of their obviously very misplaced affections wanted from them. How Max even  _ saw _ them. 

Did he feel sorry for them? That would have been the worst option to choose from, from Neena’s experience. There was nothing sexy about someone you pitied. So near the end of the imposed five day break that Neena had survived, the Captain went to the ship’s doctor and demanded their vaporizer back. 

“C’mon, 'bones, I just want to take the edge off with some Relaxant.”

The doctor, who had been reading her tablet while leaning against the wall of her room, gave Neena a look of unsuppressed disdain. “I can’t believe you insist on using that thing. Trust me, come over to the dark side, live up to your image and just  _ smoke _ .” She ended it with one of her Nelson Mayson-style punchable smirks.

This had been a long bone of contention between the two, with Neena believing that as long as someone had the money for a good rig (their own happened to have been gifted to them by a grateful young engineer back in Edgewater) then there was no point to smoking cigarettes. Neena had always loathed the smell of the crap that made it into Halcyon; stale and sharp, clinging to Ellie’s clothes and room. And besides, Neena wasn’t looking to use any drug like nicotine. They just wanted to be able to, as the name of the drug implied, relax, not get an addictive buzz. And this stuff was FAR from the hardest drugs that Neena had ever used, to boot.

To think; they had once snorted lines of crushed whatever the fuck had been left on a police cruiser’s hood as a hot cop railed them from behind with their own harness set. Or it might have been a guy with an indeed flesh dick. Hard to remember details, other than it was the funnest thing to ever come from a run in with a curious old Earth Vice Investigator.

Now they had come so low that “fun” had become board and card games, and they had to beg their doctor to let them have a fucking couple hits of Relaxant. Fuck.

Continuing to glare at the woman, prepared to, for the first time, raise hell over this imprisonment that their own crew had imposed on them, Neena was surprised when Ellie sighed, setting her tablet down and started rummaging through the chest containing her tools and personal stash of drugs—now, undoubtedly, more than tripled with the amount of drugs that Neena had kept in their own collection—and emerged with the selnder gold and purple device. 

Handing it to Neena with a cocked eyebrow that showed a disapproval that was met with a scowl, Ellie said, “Don’t use this with any hallucinogens or habit-forming formulas.”

Taking back their rig, Neena gave the doctor a condescending smile, said, “Don’t worry, mom, I won’t do anything you would do yourself.”

Ellie tried to stare her Captain down, hard-chipped blue ice for eyes and a scowl that didn’t fit well on her face. With an aggravated groan, she said, “Don’t give me that shit. You think I like having to be the voice of  _ reason _ ? You are older than me—and you’re supposed to be  _ my _ boss!” 

In spite of their doctor’s—and, depending on their mood, sometimes deemed to be very damn near to be a friend’s—recommendation, Neena walked back to their room, holding their prize. Pulling the cartridge of Monarch-origin Relaxant out from the box that contained their choice in sex toys which formed a  _ very  _ useful cover for it, Neena loaded it up, starting the little device up. 

Taking a seat on their bed, Neena took a few huffs off of the thing and splayed back, mindful as always of the tenderness in their back. Wishing all the while that their thoughts weren’t bent to an older man who had likely overheard Neena asking for their own fucking vaporizer from Ellie. 

This kind of imprisonment couldn’t last for much longer. Surely. 

Their last thought, before they fell into a pleasant daze, was,  _ I have got to do something about these people who think they can do anything to me just because it’s what’s best for me. Since when have  _ I _ ever cared about what’s best for me? _

* * *

Walking for them had definitely become stiff, but fuck if they could finally, definitely  _ walk _ again. And three days later, Neena and Ellie had made up from their stupid argument. It more than likely had to do with the fact that the woman was excited to bring her ship’s Captain into her parents. Go figure; the second the younger woman needed something, apparently all was forgiven for them. Neena had spent a few minutes walking through the ritziest city in Halcyon before they realized that their obviously too high opinion of their ship’s sawbones had almost blinded them to the obvious cynical appeal of trying to bring a nonbinary, scruffy—brown—person with her to shock her rich, stiff parents.

Of course, Neena couldn’t be  _ that _ angry. If they had had the chance to themselves, they would have pulled the same shenanigans once upon a time ago, back on Earth. 

And, hilariously, the woman had thought that the “reveal” she was born a rich girl was supposed to be a shock to Neena. Little did the cynical doctor know that both she and Neena shared a strikingly similar origin in many ways; the Captain of  _ The Unreliable  _ could  _ smell _ the “slumming it” energy that the too-clean cut woman put off. In many ways, it was the polar opposite of the airs that Max put on once. Was a near parody of the way they had acted, in the first few years they had spent on their own.

Not that Neena was trying to think about Max, at least, on purpose. 

Walking with Ellie and flanked by the man in question who said that he wanted to tag along to make sure that both “behaved themselves”, Neena kept their mind occupied not with thoughts of the outfits that were undoubtedly waiting for them to pick up and pay for at Groundbreaker, but with listening to Ellie trying, desperately, to sell how vile her parents were, and how much she wanted to shock them.

“—yeah, I want you to make some shit up, the worse, the better, when it comes to what I’ve been up to on your ship.”

Although they had been able to almost ignore the man who was following the two, Neena couldn’t resist dropping their arm around the woman’s shoulders, turning to give Max a, can-you-fucking-believe-this? look that the man answered with a soft raise of the side of his mouth. 

There was something enlivening to being able to finally be able to do something, to be no longer trapped in their own ship. The only thing they had been able to do when the others had been busy was take naps or find something appealing on the jailbroken reader that didn’t make them want to roll their eyes to read. No more sappy romances that read like bodice-ripping garbage clothed in pro-Board propaganda and no more men’s stories involving colonialist overtones. 

Even masturbation had lost its charm. 

By the time they reached the ridiculously huge Fenhill estate, it seemed like Ellie’s excited ranting over how they wanted Neena to help prove that she had been turned into an outlaw had turned into something different. Neena could almost feel the desperation radiating from their friend. 

When Ellie looked at Neena and said, “Would you… look at this? I mean, you can just  _ smell _ the clean from out here”, all Neena thought they could see in the woman’s eyes was an oddly poignant need for validation.

As they walked to the door Neena kept trying to think of just what the hell the woman was hoping to find by coming here, let alone by bringing them with her. So far as they were concerned, Ellie was better off if they tried to have fun. And, hell, Neena was in the mood for fun.

But almost as soon as the Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ walked into the house—a cavernous, empty display of indeed sanitized decadence—they could feel an unwelcome sensation of deja vu for their own childhood. They had to try a couple of doors before they even found one that was open; the doors in this place were kept locked tight, made the already indeed sterile feel as full of life as a museum display. Once they did find Ellie’s parents—well-dressed, very uptight, proper people, sitting in gaudy, overpriced wingback chairs in front of a marbled fireplace in the lounge—Neena watched as Ellie excitedly shared her so-called “exploits”, content for a while to let the woman use them as a sign of how they had given into depravity and an outlaw lifestyle. 

When the woman seemed to find it hard to continue with the farce she was constructing for her parents’ benefit, Neena felt opportunity and inspiration strike. So they went for it. Grabbing Ellie by the shoulder, Neena steered the woman to them, cutting the woman off, mid-sentence, as they called out, in their thickest, pghlemiest voice, “Enough talkin’ here, 'bones, show your daddy some sugar.” 

They looked into her overbright, surprised eyes for a moment before Neena pulled the good doctor in, ducking her back to give her a dramatic kiss. The woman tasted, of course, like stale cigarettes.

Neena released the woman quickly, obviously surprising Ellie. Neena wasn't at all interested in making out with her,  _ least _ of all in this situation, but as Neena flashed a quick look at the old folks, though, they were more struck by the impression that while Ellie’s parents looked uncomfortable— _ disgusted _ would even be fair, to a certain extent—they didn’t look quite how Neena had envisioned people watching their precious daughter be kissed by some drifter pirate she had been absconded by, would look. Should have reacted.

They got a bad feeling even before Ellie asked them, point blank, if her parents cared. After the two told their own daughter that she needed to leave due to the fraud they had committed with false life insurance, the Captain realized the mistake they had made. 

After all, Neena should have known that closure was bullshit, even the kind that was supposed to be funny. 

Taking hold of Ellie’s shoulder, they tried to subtly steer the woman out of the room as they watched their so-called cynical friend witness her whole world crumble in front of her. Neena made a mental note to tell her that she wasn’t the only person who felt like her parents weren’t there for her, had broken her heart. It felt like shit to watch the normally self-assured, almost to a fault, medic fall through about five layers of the slow realization that Neena themselves had once gone through with their own family over the course of years.

Only outside, as Neena tried to carefully tell her that this didn’t matter, that they could go raise hell over at the bar, did Ellie finally seem to bounce back.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea for all of that money that they’re making off of me.”

* * *

It wasn’t until Ellie left, patting Neena on the back and announcing that she wanted to think of how she was going to spend all of the newfound cash they had made off of her life insurance policy, did the Captain become fully aware that they weren’t alone as they slowly walked through the back alleys of Byzantium. Or, well, what there existed on this shining, golden palace of a city that was  _ supposed _ to be its back alleys.

Neena said to the ex-Vicar, “Haven’t done an insurance scheme in a long time. I mean, even longer than the time Spacer’s Choice had me on ice.” Max was quiet. At first, Neena thought that the man was just going to let them talk, so Neena turned them down a deserted back path, far from the obnoxious sound of Byzantium accents and petty complaints. “It always does my heart good to show a young artist in the field of confidence a few tricks.” As they kept walking, in that uneven, unpretty rhythm, waiting for the man who was trailing them to say something, Neena finally turned to look back at Max.

He stopped in his tracks and rose an eyebrow at them. If Neena wasn’t so sure that he had undergone a huge change in character they might have thought that he looked, well, like a man who referred to himself as Vicar Maximillion.

“I have a prescient question to ask you.”

Trying to shake off the feeling that he was displeased with them—perhaps even, to whatever degree this man was capable of it,  _ angry _ —Neena flashed him a winning smile, said, “Anything for you, enlightened one.”

Neena saw it—something  _ did _ appear in his eyes before he said, “Do you still want to proceed with a relationship, with me?”

Neena’s smile fell off of their face. Asked like this, something that they had been trying, desperately, to suppress as this man ran as cold on them as an ice shower, at first the Captain just stared at Max, stunned. Finally, letting out a weird chuckle that even to their ears did nothing to mask the nerves that had built up, Neena said, “What, you’re still offering? I was starting to think that offer had officially gone off the table—”

Max cut them off, taking steps towards Neena until he was standing directly in front of them. His voice held his usual,  _ now _ usual, resolve and calm, but there was a hint of something deeper, more passionate that seemed to rise in an inflection with some words. “I told you that this was gonna go slow, if we were going to go through with it. I am sorry that you’re not used to being courted, but if we’re still going to try at this, then I suppose I’m a little more old fashioned in some ways, more than you’d expect. My only background with romance in what I read, study. And, forgive me for not acting like I should in some aspects; even I must acknowledge that in many ways I am simply tone deaf. Tone deaf, ignorant, naive.”

Surprised, Neena had to fight the urge to sink back against a wall. They didn’t know what to expect—if they could ever have expected him to just lay it out like this, let alone exactly what it was that had been on his mind. It would seem that the counselor had some demons of his own he wanted to exorcize.

Max left them struggling to find the words to speak, his hands jammed into the pockets of his trousers, eyebrows tight as he looked expectantly at Neena. It felt like he was every teacher that Neena had ever failed to impress in one very appealing but disorientating package.

Finally, Neena said, “Did I do something to piss you off? Max, I’ve been waiting for you to make a damn move since you since we had that talk,” when ever did Neena Castillo feel hot with embarrassment and excitement, at the thought of  _ words _ that had almost been said matter-of-factly? “You’ve been a really,  _ really _ good friend, and I can safely say that without you on board these days, I wouldn’t have the strength to do half the stuff we do anymore.” Why did they say that? What the hell was wrong with them?

It was like they had kicked at a barrier that was between them and a very angry animal.

Max chuckled, a strange, dark sound from the throat of a man whom Neena had started to see as an unflappable, gentle presence. “You think I want to be—just—your friend?” He clicked his tongue against his teeth and rose a hand up, running it against the side of his face, an agonized gesture. “I’ve made it abundantly clear that I want to be near to you, I want to care for you, I want to be there for you when you need me. I’ve done everything but flat out tell you that I want you.”

After the last few days, during which Neena had started to agonize over if an ex man of the cloth still wanted them, they felt an almost more mortifying surge of relief at his words. “Well, sometimes someone really just wants to hear how badly the man _ courting _ them wants them.”

Max seemed to examine Neena’s face before he softly said, “I’ve had to fight my impulses and desires while you’ve been healing. I don’t want to rush into anything, risk damaging whatever it is we have. And I’ve been waiting for you, to  _ remember _ how much I want you.”

At first Neena was confused by what he said. Then their neck felt flush, warm with excitement that they barely managed to keep from reflecting how they felt. “You mean—from the Incident?”

Max’s eyes rose, once-near dreamy, soft green irises now sharp, thrillingly dark. “I do wish you wouldn’t call it that. But yes,” he took in a deep breath, one that seemed to fill his chest. “I’ve been certain that as the drugs left your system, you would start to recall. Maybe that you were still coming to terms with all of it. But,” he gazed at them again, the dark quality his eyes possessed, fading. “either it’s not returning to you with time, or it won’t. Not alone, at least.”

Neena had had a feeling that that was the truth, but it did not stop the pang of sadness, and no small amount of jealousy, as they realized that this man could remember everything that happened while they could not, if he was to be believed. And it had apparently been so meaningful that it had burst through those high, thick walls that he set around his heart. 

They couldn’t hold back the desperate note there was in their voice as Neena asked, “But I thought you said you knew a way to jog my memories…”

Max’s lips softly parted, as if he wanted to say something, then he shook his head softly and said, “I would love to, really, I would. But in all of my meditation and research, I nevertheless fear that I won’t be able to withstand the pressure, the temptation of it.” It was finally the ex-Vicar who took a step back, allowing Neena, for the first time, to realize that the air they had been breathing all this time had been filled with the clean scent of his skin, the tease of his cologne. “I’ve had some time to consider it, and I don’t want to ruin this, what we have. And I don’t want to hurt you. You’re… obviously not ready for a commitment.  _ Any _ commitment.”

Neena couldn’t resist; frustrated, they rolled their eyes, folding their arms over their chest. “What the fuck are you talking about?  _ Hurt _ me? What the hell do you want to do with me?”

Max said it quickly, eyes searching their face as they declared it. “You think you’re the only one who aches with unfulfilled desire, whose mind floods with intrusive thoughts, makes it hard to be in the presence of the person who takes precedence in their fantasies?” Before Neena could react to that, he said. “You were  _ hurt _ , and what’s more, you can’t remember the time we shared. The only way I’ve surmised I can allow you to recall what you’ve been suppressing, or what the drugs took from you, is to perhaps emulate what we did, to a certain extent. And I’ve been hesitant to even consider doing that with your back still in the state it’s in. And with the distinct possibility that exists; that it may not even work at all.” He scoffed. “How could I go forward with a relationship with you like this, if you can’t even remember how much it meant to us?” He ended by sighing, running that hand that he had pressed to his face, up and down his neck and chin.

Leave it to Max DeSoto to turn a declaration of need and desire, even of something tender and vulnerable, into something as if he was discussing one of his spiritual insights. But there was something wrong, broken in Neena, because hearing him talk like this made them instead ache. 

“I am _ healed _ , Max, and I know you’re scared, but what you said, it goes against your earlier statement, about wanting to take this slow. I don’t care what you can remember and I can’t. You sound like you don’t want to take it slow, Max, neither do I. If you want me, show me, because you are driving me fucking insa—”

Max moved so quickly, big calloused hand almost wrapping over the expanse of the side of Neena’s face, that he surprised them. He leaned down and kissed his Captain deeply, raw emotion in his rapid, erratic breathing. At some point it was Neena who pulled them apart, mostly so they could get a breath. Neena opened and shut their eyes, almost more to confirm that they weren’t in a dream. Then they looked at Max, saw how the pupils of his eyes had swallowed those beautiful dreamer’s greens whole as he panted. 

He didn’t look at all like he was the counselor that lived on  _ The Unreliable _ , providing a safe and sympathetic ear. No; Neena could see the reptilian desire that burned in him. That was good; it was something that they recognized.

With what looked like a good deal of difficulty, Max, still softly panting, said, “How’s that? Because, Law damn it, I want to push you up against that wall behind you and fuck you till I’m the only one you want to ever do that for you.”

Whoa, where had  _ this _ come from, let alone from the man who had said that he wanted to  _ court _ them? Hearing the ex-Vicar talk of becoming their sole source of hot sex thrilled them. But he still had to deliver on that promise. 

What Neena wanted to do was push him past that threshold that Max still, unbelievably, stood behind, but instead, they felt themselves softly asking, “What’s gotten into you?”

Max again surprised Neena by reaching over, hand sliding over the back of their head, fingers threading through their hair as he asked, “How could you  _ kiss _ her?”

Neena, so wrapped up in the only kiss that had gotten a rise out of them in so very long, looked at him stupidly as they struggled to remember what he was talking about. Having to suppress a laugh— _ how _ could he think that that was anywhere near a kiss like what they had just shared?—Neena looked at him, realized, as they saw the distinctly unhappy face of the man they had been fantasizing about for months, that it had come off far less differently to him.

Awkwardly, Neena feigned a cough, said, “That was just a joke, c’mon, big guy—”

Max interrupted, his voice rising in an emotion that Neena thought they had not heard from him since, well, before the Incident. “Just a joke? A  _ joke _ ? Neena; you kissed her, kissed her in front of me, like, like it wasn’t even a big fucking deal or something—”

Neena, now realizing that this meant more to him—obviously—put their hands up in front of them. “Whoa there, I’ve known plenty of guys who’ve seen me making out with girls and considered that a plus—”

Indeed, for the first time in what felt like forever, Max looked pissed, good and  _ enraged _ , red creeping up his neck towards his face. He took a step back, gesticulating passionately, jabbing his finger in the air for effect as he spoke. “Maybe for them, but not for me. Neena, Law damn it, if we’re going to keep going for this, I’ll have to admit something to you; I don’t want this relationship to be non-exclusive. If I have to share what you mean to me, then I don’t want to have to go forward.”

Neena stared at him, surprised their mouth didn’t fall open in shock. In the space of a few minutes, Max had gone from his new smoothness into his old, acidic self. “You’re saying—you want to go  _ steady _ with me?”

The first show of something besides obvious frustration and desire on Max’s face appeared, as a look of bitter humor set his mouth into a sneer. “That appears to be what I have been talking about, yes.”

Why did even these outbursts, signs of Max’s old, bitter self, but perhaps also a reveal of a true self that could never be altered, make them ache at the rough passion in him? But Neena knew better than to wonder what was wrong with them; it was like the head shrink that had seen Neena all those years ago had told them.  _ You’re too driven by the impulse for sex, you are incapable of sustaining a long term intimate, exclusive relationship with any one person. You’ll drive any person who tries to get in a committed relationship with you insane just trying to keep up. _

But an emotion bloomed to life in them at this man’s declaration, unsubtle shows of almost malignant, devouring need. Although Neena didn’t like to think about it, this man was the sole object of any sexual desire they had felt that had lasted them for very long. And they had grown to admire so much about him, besides the lust they felt for his body. They loved talking to him, felt safe when he was there to watch over them when they had been injured. Was excited to imagine what he saw when he looked at them.

But Maximillion DeSoto deserved a warning, before he got his hopes up with someone like them, and they would invariably let him down. Not able to look at him, Neena said, “If that’s what you want, maybe you ought to find someone else to give you that. I’m no good for someone who wants to find a person to be with—”

Max surprised them yet again, cupping the bottom of Neena’s face, lifting their head up to gaze at them. With a flick of what passed as a smile at the side of his too generous lips, Max said, “I know all about that horrible nonsense those people who weren’t ever good enough for you made you believe. Didn’t possess your fervor, your intelligence. Your raw sensuality.” His lips settled into a too-fitting sneer, one that strangely made Neena’s body feel alive with desire to see. “I’ve been inside of you. Inside of your head. And what I saw of you, how you feel for me; you might not believe me but it’s a mirror of how I’ve grown to feel for you. Let me tell you; what we share, these mutual emotions, they’re not just about something physical.” He paused, his gaze flicking up, almost in irritation before he continued, “Not…  _ just  _ physical, at least.”

Neena laughed, a soft, aching, nervous sound. They wanted to believe, needed it, a confirmation that someone cared about them. That they could, somehow, want to continue to be there for someone else. Still, they smirked, said, “Been inside of my head, huh?”

They had meant it as a joke. But Max ducked his head closer and in a soft, conspiratorial voice, he said, “Oh yes I have, Esperanza Urraca.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got feedback from a beta reader, and I decided to implement some aspects recommended in this chapter. After a day spent trying to make the last chapters come out properly, it was exhilarating to find myself, even counting aspects I ended up removing, being left with having added almost 1k to the first scene. It means a lot to me to have my writing feel engrossing and for my characters and their relationships to be compelling, so I am thankful for that feedback, it lead to me writing some of my favorite aspects of this story that don't involve my two major characters being naked(!)
> 
> Given my style of revision, it is a relief to be back to one chapter a week for upload; it gives me a good buffer in case I end up making last minute revisions or additions, like I did with this week's upload.
> 
> I want to get back to the grindstone, so I'm going to end this now before it turns into a diary entry.
> 
> Remember to leave a kudos if you haven't already, subscribe to this piece if you want to know when I've uploaded a fresh chapter! If you have any feedback I would love to hear it in the comments, I love talking to people about my work.
> 
> \------k.


	11. 10. Jamming with Max

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last thing the Captain anticipated was ending up on a date with Vicar Max.

Neena’s first reaction had been to deny.  _ Deny, deny, deny _ . All they had done had to of been some psychedelic trip, it wasn’t as though they could—should have been able to—go into each other’s head. Not that they doubted Max, or at least, wanted to believe he  _ would _ lie to them. 

Fixing what they hoped was a confident smile on their face, Neena said, "Ah, so I guess you talked to Gladys, then. Or maybe David told you about it."

Expecting—or, maybe, hoping—that Max would reveal that it had all just been a joke at Neena's expense, instead the man rolled his eyes and let out what sounded like a long suffering sigh. "I haven't said a word to that woman or the tailor about you without you present. I know who you were born as, because I  _ saw it _ for myself. It's like your whole essence was this enormously deep body of water I was swimming in, and I felt you go into mine. I know it's hard to believe—maybe even impossible, without you remembering it." He hesitated, then, sounding calmer, said, "I understand how the thought of someone knowing everything there is to know about you is... daunting. And strange."

In spite of the part of Neena that wanted to believe what he said, they shook their head and turned, walking away. "Gonna have to try harder than that. I'll see you back at  _ The Unreliable _ ." Maybe a second alone to think would give Neena the ability to talk to him about this, eventually settle the truth.

Neena had made it a few steps away before Max called out to them. "Alright. I know that your grandmother—your abuela—was the person who got you as close as you've ever felt to religious belief. Catholicism used to feel like the warm embrace that neither of your parents were capable of giving you. But, I mean, how  _ could _ they have been?" He scoffed. "Everyone always told you growing up that you were lucky; but if they knew how it felt to be pushed away whenever you used to try to hug that woman who only seemed happy to be your mother when someone happened to be there to interview her, or wanted to take a picture of her, then they would have thought better than to call you "lucky". I mean, I thought I had it bad, but I can only sympathize with what it felt like to be a human accessory for someone like your mother, or rather, some expensive, living doll."

Anger overtook them, and Neena didn't even feel shocked to have their most intimate thoughts and memories reflected back to them; they were just outraged to have him pull that personal memory out. Turned around to look back at his face as he dared to jettison their past back at them, Neena snarled, “I don’t know how you know that, but whatever you’re trying to prove, you’re better off just trying to get me in the sack instead of pulling out my old memories, _ especially  _ the bad ones.”

Max looked at them, an apology in his softened eyes. “Bad example. Alright, how about… I know about your eighth birthday. Now, your birthdays were normally like almost everything in your early life; a way for your mother and to a lesser extent, your almost non-existent father to humanize themselves to the public. But for your eighth birthday, your abuela had been babysitting you the day before. Instead of taking you to let your mother go through with a plan to take you to an American Girls doll party dressed like one of the characters with plenty of reporters and cameras, she just left with you to go to a fair. When you were scared of being recognized, she and your abuelo got your face painted—it was a skull paint, with a big crack running down the right—” he stopped, then corrected himself. “no, it was the left side—of your face. It was the first time for you where it felt like what it must have been like on Earth to be a normal kid. I mean, some of the other kids at the events sniffed you out, knew there was something different about you, but you felt like you could pass. That meant a lot to you, to be able to pretend to not be the resulting product of your father’s money and your mother’s intelligence.”

Neena stared at Max, unsure of it they were horrified, angry, or in awe of him. They had—never—talked about the truth of their childhood with anyone, letting anyone know the details of what it had been like, growing up. Had never so much as kept a diary, and if they had, Neena had long since destroyed it when they fled to Halcyon. 

Oddly, Neena realized that although it felt like they weren’t crying, a tear had slipped down their face. To his benefit, maybe, Max flinched at the sight of that tear, sighing regretfully.

Trying hard to smile, Neena reached up and wiped at the trail the tear had left on their face. “Got that… memorized, do you? That memory’s not too good, either. If you really do know my memories, everything about me, then you know that my eighth birthday was the last time mother let me be with my grandparents. Punishment for crossing her. Tried to claim they caused her emotional anguish by “kidnapping me”.” That was stupid to say, Neena realized as soon as they said it aloud. If he could tell them a private memory like their eighth birthday, then he had to know its aftermath.

Max let out a soft, choked laugh that didn’t sound at all as though it was genuine. “I’m sorry, I could have come up with a better one to tell you about—”

Neena waved their hand, a strange smile growing on their face. “No, no, it’s alright. If you wanted to find a nice, PG memory of mine, trying to talk about my childhood would have made it hard to find something that didn’t eventually end in a fucking catastrophe. That, or talking about long, long periods of boredom; studying, manners training, trying anything mother could devise to deal with my reading disorder and dyslexia...” 

Neena stopped, realizing that they sounded like they were sinking into self-pity. Something they hated, more than anything, especially given the fact that they knew that their lot in life was far from the worst. They had been given the best of everything—whether it was something they wanted or not—until Neena had gotten the balls to run away from college two years into it. Ran away, found a new identity outside of the weight of expectation. 

“I’m sorry, this is why I never talk about that. Nothing worse than someone talking about their own brokenness. It’s just a bad cliche, isn’t it, even worse when it’s a rich girl’s complaining?”

Max shook his head, seeming to hesitate before he closed the distance between them. Neena didn’t hesitate; they buried their head against his chest, the huffing breath they took as they struggled to fight back their tears filled with the smell of him, the heat of his body. They couldn't resist it, the feeling of being embraced by a very dear friend. He started to rub their back, and something came to Neena’s mind before they could censor it.  _ This feels really good, with him holding me like this. _

That thought, and the agony of trying to remind themselves that the longing they felt for more of this wasn’t something they could ever really accept, was what led them to crying, for what felt like the first time in far, far too long, more than a reminder of old, rotten memories.

Max held them, not saying anything as the supposedly cold and emotionally removed Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ sobbed into his shirt in this back alley, clutching onto his jacket as if they were stuck in the middle of meaning to push him away or pull him closer. Wondering if they had become the latest victim of this new side of Max DeSoto, wanting nothing more than to pour themselves out to him.

  


* * *

  


It turned out that Byzantium had an ice cream parlor—not a shock to either—and it had the type of amenities and menu choices that brought back bad memories for someone who had once been used to the best of everything. Whether it was what they wanted or not. With Max at their side, though, Neena sat down at the long counter and looked at the ridiculously huge list of offered flavors and felt strangely giddy in the almost forgotten aftermath of having cried themselves dry out on him. And that, unbelievably, he stayed, after they had finished.

The presence of a handsome older man who had the smoothest mannerisms that stood, incongruent, to his passionate heat, made Neena feel like they were for once at a disadvantage. It seemed that somehow he had also learned more than a little emotional intelligence as well, seemed to empathize better. 

Their giddiness also more than likely had something to do with what felt like the relief of relieving an emotional burden, both of what they had carried for their entire lives as well as one they had been carrying for months.

“I’m gonna be honest with you. I can’t pick from this list.” They giggled, not even caring how discomfitingly feminine the sound made them feel for once. Fuck it, it felt like they were living a fantasy as it was. Byzantium  _ itself _ was ridiculous, and the man sitting next to them felt like a fantasy come to life that Neena had never imagined having.

Max leaned back in his own stool and voiced his own confession. “I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever _ had _ ice cream before.”

_ He's had sex, but not  _ ice cream. Neena stopped, turned to look straight at their very welcome companion. “You must be joking. Ice cream—it’s part of the condition of being a human, right?”

Max cocked his eyebrow at her, a smirk settling on his mouth. “Not when you’re lactose intolerant, or you’re like ninety-five percent of the people who live in Halcyon. Try telling that to the folk in Monarch or Edgewater. That is, unless they can get the money and the navkey to come here.” As always, he said it as nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just schooled an ignorant fool.

Only now, strangely, Neena had no desire to punch him.

In fact, Neena felt a blush covering their face. He had a habit of making them feel like a teenager, all awkwardness and a hungry desire to please him. It made them feel vibrantly alive. “I didn’t think about that.” Another thought occurred to Neena. “It’s too bad, you know everything about me, I didn’t know that about—about you.”

Max leaned forward, settling his lower arms onto the pristine marble of the counter top. He looked totally unfitting, an anachronism in his leather jacket and with a cool confidence, especially in this setting, surrounded by Byzantium dandies. His demeanor was the kind that Neena would have never imagined seeing in Max. 

Seeming to be busy, trying to suss out the massive amount of flavors in the menu that lay open, trapped between the two columns of his elbows, Max said, “It’s not your fault you can’t remember it all. It’s a pity, yes, but you’ll know as much of me as I know of you one day, I’m sure of it.”

_ One day?  _ How long did he envision them having a relationship for? 

They had been trying to wrap their head around the thought of someone knowing their most intimate thoughts and memories; but the thought of Max, believing that they could know him as well as he knew them, felt like an extra step into territory that Neena had been drawn, irresistibly, into. 

“How can you be so sure?”

Max stopped, looking up and over at Neena. He smiled lightly and said, “It’s the best answer I’ve got to even _ how _ I could get in your head to begin with. We should just have to duplicate the experiment, and the effects should replicate themselves in you.” He  _ grinned _ , a knowing look in his eyes as he finished.

This whole thing was so crazy that Neena didn’t even react to Max clinically describing them having a long sex session together. “And if it doesn’t?”

Something bright seemed to grow to life behind his eyes—something wicked, beneath this veneer of well mannered kindness. He leaned in only an inch closer, and in a soft, conspiratorial voice, Max said, “Well, as long as you’re okay with some ex holy man having walked around in your head, I don’t think you’d be adverse to replicating certain experiences, would you?”

Ever since Neena had walked out of that alley with him, they had wanted to show Max just how much they wanted to, as he had put it, “replicate their experiment” with him. 

With him so irresistibly close to them, Neena couldn’t help in resisting. They reached over, taking one of the side of his face in their hand, and drew themselves close. Max let them kiss him, then started to kiss back. 

Neena could have melted into him, would have gone off of their stool and sat on top of Max’s lap if they had been given just a few more moments of it, if not for the sound of someone clearing their throat. Breaking away after a final, stamping kiss on his lips, Neena pressed their forehead to his and pulled away to sit fully on their stool, a girlie boner aching in their pants.

Neena made a show of acknowledging the stiff-faced man who stood behind the counter, winking at him and taking a special joy in how the man flinched in response. Excitable, Neena asked, “What’s up, pops? Got a flavor of the day?”

“Would you mind keeping the personal displays of affection to a minimum?” When Neena only mimed kissing at him, he softly rolled his eyes and asked, “Can you even  _ afford  _ a cone?”

Neena cocked their eyebrow and looked over at their flush-faced companion. They almost wanted to thank the worker, had always wanted a chance to do this. Neena were well aware of how they looked; a dark skinned person in one of their unisex jumpsuits overlaid with a charcoal grey jacket with modifications added in the form of sewn pockets and nice, dented pieces of metal, wavy black hair piled on top of their head and bound back. Neena hadn’t worn so much as a badly applied swipe of make up since they were in college. And their clothes probably  __ stunk of sulfur from a trawl through Monarch, though Neena often didn’t even notice it these days unless they buried their nose in their clothes.

Pulling their bitcard out, Neena, well aware that they were in the rare situation of being flush after a job involving SubLight and some scrap from an old gunship, sat it on the counter, ensuring that the screen with the amount on the card was facing him.

Neena watched as the man’s face turned red, redder surely than theirs or Max’s. “I would appreciate if you would choose your flavors and take them with you. Outside.”

Neena laughed, turning to look at their companion and taking in the slight hesitation on the man’s face. Whether it was due to their behavior or the man who was supposed to be here to take their orders, Neena wasn’t certain which was the reason for the anxious look on his face.

_ You would have thought that the man was already used to what being in public with me is like by now.  _ Neena sniffed, feigning a look at the ridiculously huge menu of choices, tapping a finger against their chin. “Gonna have to take us a little longer. Thanks, bud.” They didn’t look up to see the expression on this little Lord Faultenroy who stood behind the counter, but Neena could just imagine the thunderous expression he had on his face before he turned and walked away. Once they were alone, they could feel Max nudging their side. Looking over, Neena saw the purposeful look on his face.  _ Do you know what you’re doing? _

Looking back down, Nena saw that he was holding their bit card out for them to take back. With a smile that they certainly hoped was roguish, Neena took the bit card and shoved in back in the pocket they kept it in. “They got enough flavors in here? Any idea what you want?”

Max leaned in, his voice low as he spoke to Neena. “Did you look at the prices? Are you sure you want to do this?”

Why, yes, Neena  _ had _ seen the prices. A part of the thrill of all of this, in fact, was that all of this was most certainly decadently over priced. The shocked, appalled look on the face of someone who was most certainly used to being as frugal as possible, a life of living at the bottom of the world as the ex-Vicar had once believed it to be, was a much-needed ego boost for his Captain.

With a grin, Neena looked over at Max, the tip of their tongue sticking out. “You don’t need to worry about any prices, just call me your sugar daddy, baby.” When Max turned an appealing shade of red, Neena turned back to their menu, hoping that the joy they felt wasn’t fully reflected on their face. They shrugged, said, “One of my mother’s cohorts once said something about how the sign of quality in a dessert is in how they do the basics. So I’ll order vanilla.”

Max, who seemed to have regained some manner of composure, said, “I’ll do the same, then. Follow the lead of an expert.” My, but was that the start of a, hesitant, smile on his face?

  


* * *

  


Both walked out of the ice cream parlor with cones of the sticker shock-inducing ice cream, but Max was also holding a few pints of the vanilla to go to take with them for the rest of the crew on  _ The Unreliable _ —sans the members who were A.I—and Neena was lapping up the indeed quite delicious, messy treat that was already starting to drip down the side. 

Still not worth the bits, that much that Max had said was true.

But, much like the clothes that Neena had agreed to pay for for the man, it wasn’t what the item was worth, strictly, but rather the experience it gave. And the undeniable feeling, which was that this was now a date, as well as the experience that Neena got the experience of exactly what buying the ice cream was meant to do. Watching Max gingerly try the heretofore unknown substance out from out of their periphery, Neena watched as his eyes brightened, his face growing astonished.

True to form, Max did stop in place midstep, but he said, simply, “That’s… unexpected.”

Neena suppressed a laugh and turned to look at him. “What were you expecting? It to taste like medicine?”

A smile formed on his face—for someone’s who personal creedo was  _ fuck smiling _ most of the time, Neena was struck by how beautifully it did transform him, opening the ex-Vicar’s face up—and he went in for another taste. This time, Neena was struck by the sight of his tongue, how unexpectedly, wonderfully, lewd the act of licking an ice cream cone seemed for a man who had lived a life of self-imposed exile from the world of the tawdry and, well, lewd. 

“That—that’s delicious.”

_Given how much this costs, I would hope so._ Neena took a long lick of their own cone, trying to remind themselves that the joy they ought to have been getting from an ice cream cone should have been from eating the thing, not from watching someone else enjoy theirs. After all, the last thing Neena needed was to get another fetish or kink. And their own cone was set on melting down the sides of their hand with it the extraordinary amount of bits it had cost them. 

Both made it all the way into the docks before they finished their ice cream cones. As Neena licked the remnants of the sweet, sticky stuff from their hands, they were surprised when Max motioned for them to take a square of cloth that he had pulled out of one of his trouser’s pocket—that same shade of blue-purple as his vestments once were—with an upward hitch of his lips. 

Taking the handkerchief, Neena swabbed at their hands, leaving them dry, but still sticky. Shaking their head, Neena said, “Of course you’d have a handkerchief, you fucking dandy.”

The laughed, then he surprised Neena when, as they came to the waiting ramp of their ship, he reached over and pulled Neena in close. “Watch what you call me, you rich thing. You don’t know what kind of a proletariat animal I am.” And Neena, utterly engrossed in the feeling of his arms around them, didn’t expect that he would actually follow through as though he had been the one who had had practice at this.

Max's mouth, with overwhelming notes of sugar-sweet vanilla, the lemon and poppy seed waffle cone, became the flavor that Neena would soon wish they had been actually eating ice cream of. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting interesting around here, now, isn't it? I don't mean this story (although: that IS true). China has blocked the platform, which feels like a real act meant to continue to beat up the morale of their people, and I think the best answer to this is to continue having a real gay old time all day, every day, like we always do. So for now, let's just say to those people who can't access us at the moment: see you later, space cowboy. We'll miss you.
> 
> On top of that, it seems like the fandom grows and swells with what I can see seems like quality work, like the noticeable bulge in Vicar Max's trousers. I can't WAIT to finish writing this, so I can read through them myself.
> 
> And on that note: YES, I am almost done writing this story(!), I wrote about 4k of new content just yesterday, and while I have to still continue to run through the whole thing with my knife to make everything even, yes, it's all so close to finished that I will probably finish writing it today. Further news: the final scenes grew, so I had to expand the list of chapters to a new one. I... hope you like a long story. If not, it seems like we're starting to get drowned in a wave of other works in the fandom. I can say I'm excited to check them out myself, and I'm not afraid to state the same point again.
> 
> Furthermore, I am poised, about as soon as I type the ending proper out for this story, to go back into my first original piece with the intent to revise it. Yep; I am putting my big, angsty, horny epic into Scrivener and seeing if I can churn it like so much butter!
> 
> Keep in mind going forward those of us who can no longer be here because their government has made it a point to oppress them on the deepest and most profound level, at their desires and internal life. But let's not end it on a low level: I really enjoyed writing the Captain and Max having ice cream together, it was a relief to see that those two could spend time together, just having fun. I think it's oddly fitting, to not forget to smell the roses, in the wake of so much turmoil and stress around us.
> 
> \---k.
> 
> UPDATE: and I just finished the last of it--YAY!


	12. 11. Especially Therapeutic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That kinda lovin', turns a man to a slave.  
> That kinda lovin' sends a man right to his grave.  
> I go crazy, crazy, baby, I go crazy.  
> You turn it on, then you're gone.  
> Yeah, you drive me crazy, crazy, crazy, for you baby.

Neena couldn’t hope but wonder, a few hours out of Byzantium, if they would have to wait another agonizing few days before they got a pulse on this new and unexpected relationship. It was agony; if not for the ice cream that they had paid a king’s ransom for which had threatened to melt otherwise, Neena would have torn their would-be Romeo over to an abandoned space in the Port and just showed him how slow  _ they _ wanted to take things. 

Neena wasn’t used to being in the passenger’s seat for a one night stand. Aside from the few relationships that had invariably failed that they had gotten into—back when they had been obsessed with pleasing their mother by pretending to be interested in rich boys—Neena had made it a point to be the pursuer. After all, they had always thought that there was no point in wasting time.

But with this relationship, they weren't certain  _ what _ they wanted.

As everyone waited for the ice cream to chill in the freezer, Felix excitedly informed them that a special was coming on the aetherwave: a famous drama, romance, and adventure piece that was apparently culturally important to the people of Halcyon, which aired once a year. So like that it became a movie night for every human member of the crew of _ The Unreliable _ .

Sitting the chairs in the kitchen up on one side of the table, ADA lowered the big screen from above the table—the one Neena hadn’t even known existed—as the movie started. As Neena prepared to see what the people in Halcyon enjoyed watching outside of throwaway dramas or tossball, for the first time since the last kiss out in front of  _ The Unreliable _ , they weren’t thinking about intimacy; or still mysterious, sophisticated ex-Vicars. It was as though Neena were examining a different species, watching people who had grown up in Halcyon share an old cultural touchstone with them. Tossball, the modern aetherwave productions—it was all strange and different, like it had once felt to slip for their first time into a well-fitted dress shirt and trousers. 

But, still, as the movie started, Neena felt themselves having to fight back the urge to roll their eyes at the dramatic monologue that the movie started with, the screen still black. 

_ Journeys into the heart of Halcyon are dangerous, treacherous, often offering no easy way to return home to mother Earth. Still, the riches of the outer worlds and the adventures promised therein draw many souls. Join us, as we follow the tale of the first colony ship which braved the treacherous distance between Earth and the Halcyon System. _

Neena felt their attention perking up as the narrator mentioned something that was very close to their heart, indeed. 

_ The colonists aboard the Halcyon-bound ship, called  _ The Hope _ , did not know that they would never reach their destination, but they undoubtedly earned the distinctinction of becoming our most known and celebrated of modern legend—and tragedy. _

Watching the program gave Neena a strange sense of incredulity and an eeriness, as though the spooky and utterly uptight narrator were reading off their eulogy. They shifted, more uncomfortable than they would have thought they would have felt, until the sound of Felix speaking up dragged Neena out of their head.

“Wonder what those folks would think, if they knew the Captain of the ship that’s been making so much of a ruckus in Halcyon was a survivor of  _ The Hope. _ ”

Neena had to fight back the urge to snicker. Sometimes they really did love the boy.

Parvati hesitated, then turned to look at Felix. “Um, I don’t want to tell you what to do or nothin’, but I really love this movie, so can you guys please lemme watch it?” Quickly, she added, “I’m sorry.”

Felix looked at her, surprised. “H-hey! Look, I might try to be a tough guy, but even I have a soft spot for  _ The Legend of the Lost Hope.  _ I just thought it was real funny that we’re sitting with a real deal survivor of  _ The Hope. _ That’s all.”

Looking back at the screen, Neena couldn’t help the smile that fit across their face. Felix was right; this was amazing, all of it had always been a wild, unbelievable ride thus far. The kind of chaotic journey that the Board surely never would have allowed to be shown in this piece of what would surely be near-propoganda.    
  


* * *

  


As the movie started up in earnest, it became obvious that it was a pretty flimsy love story wrapped up in a thick breading of propaganda so unsubtle that it may as well have been a parody. Still, Neena tried to get into it, wanting to at least try to enjoy a movie that seemed to mean a lot to most of the people on board. 

With the almost impressive exception of Nyoka, who splayed back in her chair, eyes glazed from booze, occasionally chuckling at something that wasn’t even remotely supposed to be funny.

The story started with a very dramatized hero, a supposed future colonist on board  _ The Hope _ ship, who happened to end up on it by near happenstance. Aside from the fact that he was of course as made up as could be, to the point where it was hilarious—the man apparently got on board the colony ship when he lost a bare knuckle brawl against a working-class gangster who stole his identity, knocked him out, and stuffed him onto the ship under a new identity—Neena found their sole area of interest to be in trying to suss out what exactly the people now thought that the people of Earth some eighty years ago, were like.

Thus far, Neena had to suppress the urge to not start laughing at the hokey accents that the people put on, from the—cockney?—accent of the villain of the first fifteen minutes, to the high-culture airiness of the hero’s fiancee, friends, and family. It was all part and parcel of being a living relic. After all, Neena knew from experience, from the time they had spent awake on the ship, that everyone there had all, with little exception— such as them—been the Super Very Smart type who could run a colony in a place like Halcyon. There certainly weren’t THAT many guys in bowler hats or ladies in flawless ball gowns. And the inside of  _ The Hope  _ did not have any gold to it, in spite of what the movie seemed to suggest.

As Neena’s attention began to wander, they found their gaze drifting away. They discovered that, unsurprisingly, Felix and Parvati were wrapped up in the film along with Ellie to a lesser degree, in spite of her earlier complaining that she thought this movie was cliched and boring. She was sitting looking at the screen, her chin resting thoughtfully in her hand, her eyes glued to the screen. Splayed out back in her chair, Nyoka was succumbing to the effects of the booze she had been slamming while Neena had been cruising around Byzantium, eyes already drifting shut. 

Sat almost on the opposite side of the small audience they made up, Neena was surprised to discover that the ex-Vicar was looking right at them. Never one to shy away from initial discomfort, Neena fought off the urge to look away, in spite of how embarrassing it made them feel. How long had he been staring at them?

Well, not _ staring _ ; not exactly. Max was positioned so that he was able to make it look like he was sitting sideways in his chair, chin resting thoughtfully on his chin, fingers sitting parallel to his cheek. You couldn’t tell that he wasn’t actually looking at the screen unless you looked at his eyes. And as Neena stared back at him, they  _ could _ see that Max was looking straight at them.

Neena didn’t know if they would have ever unlocked their eyes from his—perhaps they would get into a nice game of chicken, especially in light of the way this man had been pushing his dominance on them recently—except for how the sudden sound, of Parvati speaking up, made Neena look away from the man as if they had just been caught feeling him up.

“Ah, I bet this all feels right hokey to you, but I just wanted to know if this reminds you at all of what it was like, coming over?”

Neena rubbed the back of their neck, ducking forward. They could feel the heat traveling up their back and onto the skin on the back of their neck. “S-some of it, like the interior shots of the lower class homes, the clothes of the workers, reminds me of being back then.”

Parvati stared at them, blinking in that guileless manner of hers. “Oh. I s’pose it wasn’t normal to have someone like Montgomery on the real  _ Hope _ , then.”

Felix leaned over and shushed Parvati. “Hey, you told  _ me _ to shut up.”

The girl ducked her head. “Sorry, I know.”

Neena watched the movie for a scene—watching as the romantic lead, Montgomery, was introduced to his soon to be tragic lover, a woman named Dagney Tallert, a highly respected CEO’s daughter who ends up in the bumbling hero’s path and immediately gets sucked into his journey into trying to regain his life that was stolen from him. As their attention started to wane, Neena found themselves drawn to look at him again. 

Neena looked over, trying to do it as slowly and deliberately as they could so they didn’t seem like they  _ were _ doing it, only to realize that Max had never moved from his position. 

He was still looking at them. 

An electric current went up Neena’s spine as an unintentional, small smile appeared on their mouth, making them finally break eye contact.  _ What’s he doing? What’s he trying to say?  _ These questions thrilled them, made Neena feel like they were being pursued. It was a feeling that Neena could hardly recall ever having experienced before. At least, in a way that made them feel like it was something they wanted. Craved, even.

Neena had turned to look back at the screen as though they were going to try to watch the movie, all the while their heart pounding hard in their ears. Neena was trying, struggling to think of what they wanted to do. What they could do. Until, eventually, they let out a fake cough and got up from their seat. 

“I—um,” a quick look showed that almost everyone was looking at them now, not just Max. “my back’s acting up, think I’m gonna just go to sleep.” Cries of dismay from Parvati and Felix were quieted when an unexpected voice rose up.

Ellie glanced at Neena, said, “Alright, I bet all of that walking might have exacerbated the strain.” She thumped her hands on her knees and stood up. “Here, I can take you back to your room—”

Max stood up, a neutral expression on his face. “No, I’ll do it. Besides, me and the Captain are supposed to have a counseling session. It might be best to have it before we all get tired and head off to bed.”

Felix spoke up, stuttering for a moment before he said, “Um, but it’s still a few hours till ten, even.”

Max favored the young man with a kind expression and came up with a lie as easily as though it were the truth. “I know. We have a lot to discuss, more than will take an hour session, because this will be our first talk with each other. I also plan on doing some exercises, some easy meditation and then some massage to alleviate the strain in their back.”

Everyone looked at Max, a stunned expression on their faces, then almost as one, they looked at Neena for confirmation. The Captain felt that now familiar heat traveling up the back of their back and up their throat, was grateful that no one could see them in the near dark—at least, the blush that was covering their face—as they said, “Yeah, we were talking about having a counseling session together.”  _ What, exactly, is he planning? _

The man in question walked up to Neena, seeming set on continuing this idea that Neena’s back still hurt and that they needed help being walked—or, something that Neena had no right feeling, whispered that he wanted to  _ touch them _ —as he set his hand in what was supposed to look like a friendly gesture on their upper arm. Neena smiled at the rest of the assembled crew before they turned around, aware as they walked to their room that the man had not removed his hand where he had set it on them. 

Neena turned and finally asked him when they were a step away from their room what they had been dying to ask. “What are we doing?”

Max let out a long, slow chuckle. “Of all the damn questions. Let’s wait till we can get in the room with a door closed behind us, alright?”   


As they walked into the room, Neena didn’t say anything to the man who was trailing them close behind, but did speak to the ship’s A.I. “ADA, please lock the door and don’t disturb me unless someone’s trying to board us.”

A.D.A answered immediately. “As you wish, Commander.”

Turning to look at their companion Neena saw that Max had stood back against the shut door, not quite meeting their eyes as he rested with his arms at his side. He had a small, teasing smirk on his lips, one that looked infinitely more attractive that the cruel, patronizing expression he once used to wear.

In that shirt that hugged his torso and arms, and wearing the once-holy pair of purple-blue trousers that fit his legs and hips downright beautifully, it was easy for Neena to wonder how they had gotten to this point with a man like this. Having never before, previous to the Incident, even  _ seen _ Max without his usual vestments on, nowadays it was all they could do to not marvel at how well-built he was. As if the very Great Engineer that he had once believed fervently in had indeed made him, all contrast and perfect symmetry. His perfect, honey-brown hair contrasting with his darker, short hair that grew on the sides and back of his head, swept back to fully show his angular face, those big, soft-looking lips, his arching, dark brows that sat above those derp set, bright green eyes... 

They had to shake their head and blink several times to try to wipe from their mind the painfully overwhelming presence of the ex-Vicar in their room, alone with them, staring into what felt like their soul. “Well, what did you have in mind?”

Max rose his chin, almost a look that felt defiant, more rebellious than what he actually said. “Why, Captain, I thought I said we were coming in here for a planned counseling session.”

Neena had to bite back a chuckle. “You’ll have to forgive me, then, because I don’t remember setting up an appointment with  _ The Unreliable _ ’s counselor. It might be because of how tired that damn movie made me feel.”

Max tilted his head softly to the side, that earlier, softened smirk returning to rest of his mouth. “How  _ about  _ that piece of Board propaganda that we all swallow eagerly every year when it’s broadcast?”   


Neena feigned shock, resting a hand on their chest. “Maximillion DeSoto! What has come over you; did I just hear you refer to something as “board propaganda”?”   


“Why, I do believe I did.” He rose an eyebrow, a playful glint in his eyes. “Even your trustworthy ship sympathetic ear is allowed to harbor his own personal opinions. Even if they are very different from what he used to once profess.” He seemed to be staring, deep, into Neena’s eyes as he spoke deliberately, softly. “A man like me  _ can _ change.”

Neena ducked their head, overwhelmed, feeling as though at any moment if they didn’t regain control of themselves that they would say something they’d regret, or worse; want too much to be true. “So, counselor, what should we do?”

He was quiet, didn’t say anything until Neena looked back at him. The warm smirk on his face was gone, leaving a sober, too expressive look in his eyes. “How about we find our seats.”

Neena almost asked him why he didn’t just do what he had been threatening to do, almost seemed to be declaring by how he had been staring at them. But the pride and bravery that the Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ normally felt had deserted them. So Neena just walked over to the edge of their bed and sat down; as they did, half expecting the man to sit next to them, or maybe even at the foot of the bed. When, instead, Max walked over to their desk chair, turned it around and sat down in it, Neena didn’t know whether they were more relieved or disappointed. 

“So, you’re not gonna, like, actually try to listen to my problems and try to give me advice, are you?”  _ Christ _ their nerves were bleeding into their voice.

Max chuckled, sitting further back in his seat, those large hands resting on his knees. “I don’t think it’d be appropriate for me to offer to provide you with counseling. I feel like I have my own interest in your personal life. At least, I hope I do.”

Neena had to fight back a stupid grin that wanted to stretch across their face. “U-um, and what interest in my personal life do you have?”

Max sidestepped the question as easily as he had once argued or defended the tenets of his old belief system. “What do you envision from a relationship with me?”

If Neena had been drinking something they would have spat it out. “What is this, a job interview?”

Max started to smile, but he hid it behind his raised fist before he spoke. “Given the fact that we’re two people who might have different ideas of what this relationship means to us or what we want from it, I think we ought to lay down a few ground rules. Talk about expectations, aspirations. Decide what we want before we do anything. Rash.”   


Neena could feel their face growing a bright red, and they knew that if this guy was anyone but Max, they would have told him to leave if he was into describing sex or intimacy like he were trying to lay out the contract details with an assistant or, relevant to his new job, as someone’s counselor.  _ And besides, what if the only thing I want is  _ rash? “Okay, enough, I can appreciate what you’re doing for me, Max, I really can, but can’t we just go with the flow?”   


The transformation of the smirk on Max’s face felt kinder, but somehow bittersweet. “I would like that, really, I would. But we have a mission to think about. And a ship of our co-workers—compatriots—whom we live with. I think it’s only fair to the people and stakes involved in our day to day lives to make sure we don’t jeopardize that. Let alone me doing something that you’re not comfortable with.” When Max blinked, he almost managed to make it feel like he was, against his previous promise of not wanting to do it, becoming more like Neena’s counselor.

They scoffed, even though it felt like Neena’s heart was speeding up in their chest to an almost unbearable degree, and not just from excitement. “I thought you said you were in my head already.  _ You _ know me, you know what I want.” 

Max’s eyelids fell to partially cover his eyes. Maybe Neena was only imagining it, but it sounded as though a thickness had appeared in his voice. “I am well aware of how you feel about me, which is… exhilarating, yes. But me “knowing” you does not give me any actual right to presume how I will treat you, or the nature of the relationship we can have. Even a mutual intersection of our desires and needs does not mean that there is some set manner with which we ought to abide by. And besides, there are a few… special matters which we ought to discuss. The sooner we do it, the better.”

Neena shut their eyes, wondering if they had the patience or the ability to overlook their own frustrations to really go through with this. Whatever the hell  _ this _ was. When they closed their eyes, however, all Neena could think about was how it felt to be roughly kissed by Max. “Alright, alright, we’ll do it your way.”

“But it’s not just my way. Neena, I  _ want _ to know what you want.”

“You know what I want, Max.” They hesitated only a moment before they blurted it out next. “What I need.”  _ I never change, I just want one thing from another person. And then I’ll leave him like I always do, so there’s no point in stretching this out or trying to prolong it when I’ll ever only lose interest. _

Max’s eyes seemed to darken as a look that Neena was still unaccustomed to settled on the enigmatic man’s face. His voice was velvet soft, almost dangerous. “What do you want, Neena?”   


“I want you.”

One side of Max’s lips quirked in a fleeting smirk. “Well, that is a relief to hear. I wanted to make sure that in light of what has happened between us that you’re still interested in me.” He leaned forward, elbows resting on his upper legs. “But in what context do you  _ want _ me, Neena?”

Feeling, like they were once again being played with, Neena felt a flush of anger burn through them. “I want to fuck you. Every chance we get alone.”

That finally hit home. Provoked him. Max winced, his eyes shutting as he took in a deep breath. After he let that long breath out in a heavy, slightly shaking sigh, the ship's counselor said, “Blunt. But, fair. And honest.”

Neena took the initiative, sick of being looked at by him like they were some truth he wanted to explicate, learn from. “Damn right it’s honest. I don’t know what happened during the—” they stopped themselves, before Neena could call it that word again, the one that, as Max had told them, didn’t fit. “when we first had sex, but I would have wanted it, wanted you, like how I want you now. Only now I’m more curious than ever. Burning with it. And if you do know anything about me, then you know I don’t have the patience to blow the fucking candles out on a goddamn birthday cake, let alone take my time ripping the wrapping paper off of a present.” Neena leaned forward, matching Max’s position as their growing, aching need was emboldened by their growing willpower and now fiercely returned ego. “So if you’ve got something for me, you’d better show me it or get the fuck out of my room before I make you regret ever teasing me.”

It was Max’s turn to grow a bright red. He dropped his head, apparently losing his senses, maybe even his mind. He reached a hand up, and Neena didn’t miss how Max’s hand shook as he pushed his fingers through his hair. He was older than them, but Neena realized as they looked at him that he was fresh at this, a boy as sweet at the delicious color of the hair he was nervously pushing his fingers through. And if he was really wanting to mess with them, then he needed to know how hot they burned, that they might end up actually burning  _ him _ . 

Finally, Max sat up against the back of his seat, stared Neena in the eyes, as he talked expressively with his hands. He was finally losing that cool he was pretending was his new normal. “I’m not trying… look, I want to know what you see in me. An us.”

Neena stood up, could see imprinted clearly on this man that he was here, ready for them, ready for Neena to show what he wanted them to prove. He just couldn’t  _ say _ it, could not just come out and say what he wanted. It was, someone, still a barrier, a delicious profanity that he almost believed they wouldn't succumb to. Neena crossed the distance to him as Max looked at them, a protest curving his lips. Neena sat their knee on his leg, hand going where they had been dying to go as they had watched him stress out over something as simple to them as sex. They ran their fingers through his hair, mussing it. Enjoyed having the high ground on someone who seemed to have been using his height advantage against them thus far, physically and morally. 

Well, Neena knew too well that how tall someone was was no indication of how much of an aggressor they were. Case in point; Max could only stare up at them, mouth falling open, as Neena played with his soft, clean hair and looked down at him, their own smirk on their lips. 

God, he smelled good.

“You want to know what I see in you. I think you must already know, if you were in my mind, but for old time’s sake, how about I show you?”

This time, out of respect for the man who was giving off vibes of hungry, needing energy, but who was talking as if he wanted to take it  _ slow, _ unnecessarily slow, Neena waited for him to say it, say it clear so they knew that he wanted Neena to open their fucked up, dirty mind to him again. 

Max stared up at them, unblinking, a delicious, uncertain dreaminess in his lush green eyes. “What would you show me?” When Neena only continued to stare down at their quarry, a trapped, large rabbit, he gulped, and said, “I do. I want to know how you feel about me.”

Neena dropped their playful hand down from the back of his head to draw down the back of his neck. They were tired of words, of speaking, of explanation. They enjoyed the feeling of his trimmed hair, the tell-tale raised skin on the back of his neck, and then they drew him forward, waiting for him to relent, to press forward on his own. When he did, with a needing, helpless moan escaping his mouth, Neena rewarded him with a kiss. 

It wasn’t chaste, and it begged for another, then more, until Neena was sitting on his lap, knees resting on either side of his hips, with the man who at least pretended to run cold reaching up, arms grasping the back of their torso to force Neena closer to him, kissing back as good as he got.

Damn, either someone had taught him good already, or it was something that, a voice in the back of Neena’s head whispered, he might have picked up from them. He certainly seemed to know how to kiss Neena like how they loved it best; fierce and searing, breaking away only when both had lost their minds to drag his mouth against their neck, their jawline, making Neena moan and shiver. 

He knew their honey buttons, lips teasing down the side of their neck as a forewarning before he planted a kiss and, as though he had not been the man who had just been telling Neena that he wanted to take it slow and to decide what they wanted first, he made Neena squeal, then moan when he latched his lips, right in the middle on the side of their neck, sucked, hard.

Neena mewled, jerking in his arms, eyes rolling in the back of their head. It felt amazing, but the surprise, at the audaciousness of him as well as the unbelievable decision of him to do it, sent Neena’s mind into a free fall. As his lips disengaged, Neena, in a low voice that barely stopped short of a whimper, said, “If you do that, they’ll know that you weren’t in here to counsel me.”

Max voice sounded almost alien, heavy and drunk on desire. “What the fuck do you care? Tell ‘em I was giving you sex therapy if they need to know about what we do in here alone.”

Neena jerked in his arms, his face almost buried against their neck.  _ Fu-uck!  _ “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” He took in a deep drag of breath, nose pressing against Neena’s oversensitized neck, brushing his lips against her. “I’m  _ trying _ here, Neena, trying to let you slow this down, because I can’t. I want you too badly, wanted you the moment you woke up again in that room. I would have taken my pants off the second you woke if you told me to get back in bed with you.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, slow. We need to—go slow.” Neena shut their eyes, panting. They felt like they were on fire, and everything in Neena told them that they needed to take their clothes off, to be with this man like how they wanted, ached to do. Alright, he was tired of having to be the grown up, then Neena would have to do it for a bit, even if everything in them just wanted to hit the accelerator. After all, they weren’t just dealing with their libidos, he was right; the real danger was what this meant for their futures.

They sat up further on their man’s lap, pulling away from where he was still nuzzling their neck, closing their eyes and taking in a deep, steadying breath before they said anything. “How about we start with what we have in common? We both want each other. And—we had an unbelievable experience. Which no one would ever believe us if we told them about it.”

Max let out an uncharacteristic, loud growl. “Get to the point. You’re the one who started this fire.”

If not for how hard he was breathing, Neena knew that if Max was capable of brevity, that something was wrong with him. And it wasn’t as though  _ Neena _ was cold or removed. Their conscience was just gnawing at them, as much as Neena wanted to ignore it, shove it away, they knew that they couldn’t live with themselves if they hurt him. 

Still, they didn’t have the strength or the discipline to do what he truly needed, deserved; which was to help him forget they had ever had sex with him. Maybe introduce him to a good girl, someone like him, perhaps, a survivor of the cultish religion that had sucked him in at such a young age. Someone inexperienced, could spend the time slowly getting to know their bodies without so much emotional baggage.

But the thought of some bubble headed, boring woman touching him seized Neena with a desire they were once used to tamping down when the brief touches of it appeared. It was one reason among many for how Neena had avoided any steady relationships. How ugly it could transform them, into a possessive beast. But there was nothing that could stop them now. Selfishness and territorial need grabbed on tight and refused to let go.

Max _ is mine. Mine, mine, mine, mine. _

Angry at even the  _ thought _ of Max getting into a relationship with some shrinking violet, Neena again lost their resolve to somehow do right by him. They grabbed onto the back of his head and forced it back, looking only for a brief moment into eyes whose pupils had blown huge before they took his mouth, thrusting their tongue past his lips.

_ Mine, mine, mine. _

Goddamn he tasted good. Some inexperienced man who had lived most of his life without pleasure, especially the carnal side of it, shouldn’t have felt so good, taste so right. Or, really, tasted so fucking wrong, like Neena was kissing and debasing one of their abuela’s angels, or perhaps a saint. 

But, would an angel be lurching up at them with that notable shape, straining against his trousers?

Still he was the one this time who was the voice of reason. Albeit with a true, pained strain in his voice as he seemed to tear his mouth away with great difficulty. “You make it hard to keep a thought in my head. I want you to—I want to see if it’s…” he stopped, gasping as Neena bent down and started to kiss along the line of his jaw. “If it’s possible, that you can remember it. Or learn to.”

Neena winced, tried to stop themselves from gyrating on his lap. It was too late to slow down; It was a struggle to stop from bouncing on the lap of their ex-Vicar, the best they could do was bite back a whimpering moan and run their lower body against his trousers. Somewhere Neena found their brains enough to formulate speech. “Uh… You’re gonna have to either start talking fast, or tell me to get off. I could never take foreplay with no follow up without having to find some way to relieve my fru—”

Again Max surprised them, grabbing them rough and fast, shoving their writhing body against his before he started to kiss them, tongue forcing Neena’s mouth open, hands anything but proper as they traveled down their back to grope their ass, pressing Neena against his lap. Against the part of him that wanted, needed to be freed. 

When he leaned his head back just far enough to disengage their lips, Max spoke in a soft near whisper. “Damn it, we’re not going to be meditating or doing talk therapy. I’m trying to tell you that if we’re gonna do this, it’s gonna take a while. And… I want you…  _ I want you _ …” he broke off, eyes not meeting Neena’s own, stuck permanently on his partner’s lips as if transfixed. “By sweet verity, I  _ want you _ .” He finished off the oath with a soft whimper of his own before he gave in, leaning forward to begin kissing Neena anew.

By instinct, Neena’s hands had been traveling down his chest, hot skin covered only by a thin layer of Earth cotton. Down, down, until Neena was at the waistband of the pants that were trapping their lover, wanting to exonerate him. As their fingers caught onto the edge, Neena found the will to break away from their kiss, but found their tolerance so beaten down that they could only press their face against one of Max’s cheeks, lungs filled with the smell of his skin. Their whole body throbbed, ached, like they were some twenty something who wanted to please whomever had offered them a port in the storm of their raging libido, their loneliness.

“I want you too. I’m losing my fucking mind. Do what you need to do, but I need some relief. And soon.”

Max chuckled, the sound somehow strangled. “Don’t you worry, think you’ll like it. I would say I’d  _ hope  _ you like it, but something tells me—” His words were cut off with a surprised yelp as Neena gave him back what he had given them earlier. His skin tasted wonderful as Neena sucked his neck, hard enough to draw a delicious bruise, but didn’t stop there, closing their teeth around the spot and sucking even harder. Max, in a near shout, declared, “Damn!”, then he let out a moan that Neena could feel against their opened mouth. They kept sucking, intent on leaving a long-lasting mark, a stamp on the man they craved like they did some fantasy that had been made real.

Neena finally drew away, looking down at the once-holy man who stared up at them, having to breathe in rough, choppy gasps as they sat up on their knees. “You talk a lot. As long as what we’re doing qualifies as sex, let’s get down to it before we chafe.”

Max stared at them for a moment longer before he remembered to blink, his eyes squeezing shut tight as he let out a ragged gasp. “Alright. You can only hold off for so long… We’re going to emu…” he winced, biting his lower lip in an unintentional, frustrated expression that looked so delicious that Neena barely suppressed the urge to kiss it. “Law  _ damn it _ ,  _ emulate _ what we did that night.”

Even though Neena felt like they were on fire, they managed to grin at him. “What night are you talking about?”

He glared at them, the effect of any potential hostility he had for his torturer ruined by how his hands were trembling as they stroked down the small of Neena’s back. “Captain, stop teasing me, you’ll give me a heart attack.”

Neena shrugged, letting their unbound hair fall over their shoulder, pouting as they rolled their hips against his lap, knowing by how he looked that Max was struggling to breathe with what effect they were having on him. “It’s  _ Neena _ when I’m gyrating on your dick. I’m not normally a teaser, I’m a natural born pleaser. How are we gonna do this? I can’t even remember  _ what _ the hell we did.” 

Max smiled through a pant that made him look like he was in physical pain. “But I do. I’ll never forget it. You’ll have to follow my lead.”

_ I’ll never forget it.  _ Neena felt like everything inside of them melted at the thought of this, taking erotic instruction from Max. Somehow they managed to smile back at him, even as their fingers were running against the waistband of his pants, eager to rip them off. “Hope you’re still capable of giving instruction.”

Max managed to quirk one of his brows at them, a devious smile resting far too easily on his mouth. “One never loses a gift—”

Whatever he was about to say was cut off, not once more by Neena, but by ADA, whose voice made both jump and gasp. “Just so you two know: the rest of the crew is talking about ordering something delivered to eat for dinner, and against my warning that the Captain had specific orders not to be disturbed, they would like to know what you both would like to eat.”

Neena let out a choked laugh, and first felt the rumbling in his torso before they heard his rich, lusty laugh, a sound that Neena wished they could fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics are for Aerosmith's "Crazy", which, as I told friend of the story and new friend in general Danypoo80 is what this cruel chapter deserved. Aerosmith lyrics.
> 
> That was the less than subtle way I wanted to thank Dany for sticking with me in this and giving me feedback. Thank you, and be sure to check her writing, she's been at this longer than I have and she has the best tastes in fandoms and taste in general. I plan on reading once anxiety is not riding me like a bad donkey.
> 
> As I announced in an edit to last week's end, I finished the basic draft of this whole thing. In my personal life I've pivoted to starting the early process of revising my first original piece of work that is still up on Wattpad, which you can find a link to on my profile, yadda yadda. I'm at information and data collection stages, which is basically me collecting the comments and metrics of the audience for the second draft I posted... it's kind of a mess, but it was a learning mess, which makes a difference. So I tell myself.
> 
> I am kind of in mid panic with all of this, so this has been a good thing to come back to every week, even if I am being withholding so far. It's meant a lot to see that people care about this, I love talking to those of you who leave comments, and even the kudos, fake internet likes and seeing that people are subscribed or have book marked this, is fun to watch build and know that there's an audience for the updates.
> 
> Have a great week, please don't get sick, and if you do, treat your immune system nicer than I treat you guys with these blue balls updates.


	13. 12. Our Waltz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he says they're gonna get down to it, his Captain had no idea what it is he meant.

Neena and Max had told ADA to give them some much-needed privacy—and that they would just have to eat whatever had been ordered for them later, if at all. Leaving both where they had been, now with a fresh awareness of what they were doing. Neena could almost sense it in him—Max looking at them and realizing what they had been doing, were surely about to do. The fun of it, the game, had faded off like afterglow. 

There was a slight hesitation to him, one that Neena had to admit they weren’t immune to as well. He had been right earlier, after all. This wasn’t something they could just “wing”, not when it involved a crewmember. Your best friend.

What if Neena let him down? What if they learned that he wasn’t as intense as Neena was? What if—

If they considered themselves the superior expert on this, then Max proved that he was more than eager with his ship’s Captain, when he forced Neena’s mouth down to his and almost dragged them back into not being able to process any thought coherently. 

As they broke away, both sharing turns at kissing each others necks and the sides of their faces, Max said, “That night, you took the lead,” in between slightly frenzied kissing.

Neena’s toes curled into tight balls inside their boots. It was hard to think, let alone speak, with Max DeSoto’s generous lips on their skin, but somehow Neena managed to articulate some words. “I want to know, but I don’t know if I can pay attention right now to listen to a story, love.”

Max drew in a rough, shuddering breath, for a moment almost seeming to collapse against their neck. “By the law, I  _ love _ it when you call me that.” 

Neena wriggled helplessly on him, feeling a pained grin stretch across their face. Wow, they had a habit of making a man who had lost his religion utter praises and begging to his ex-belief system. Neena decided to reward him. Or torment him further. 

“What, never had someone tell you that you look like every authority figure they ever wanted to fuck in that blue get-up?” As Max let out a fresh groan, Neena had to shake their head violently to find the ability to speak again. “But I’ll play nice. What shenanigans, Mr. DeSoto, did two young kids like us get up to that night?”

It was surprising he was even still able to talk; Neena knew that by now, a lot of people they had gyrated on would barely be able to string a sentence together. But, talk he did. 

“I was… I was struggling with the vision, what I saw when I… the first ten minutes of the effect of the… the drugs.” Neena thought that he was going to give up, lose the ability to speak, then he made a loud swallow and said, “It was my mother. Then I… saw myself. I had to hit him, when he tried to embarrass me. A version of myself that was everything I wished I was. Was trying too hard to be.”

Neena sat further, looked down at him. “What?” They could remember saying something similar as a quick lie to Ellie, something hackneyed about watching Max see himself in a vision, then having to fight him. Never would they have believed that that was actually something that might have happened. But was it possible that somehow there was some part of them that could remember what happened?

Maybe, if they tried hard enough, they  _ could _ remember…

It sounded, when Max spoke up again, like he had gotten more of his thoughts strung together. “You came on to me. Not that it made much of a difference. It was like magnetism between us, what drew us together. Like our need, repressed, was linked together. And we could finally see it in each other.”

Neena was already hot, but his words made them feel oddly thrilled. Proud of themselves. Yay them, for jumping his uptight bones. Neena forced a grin on their face and looked at Max. “How’d that  _ happen _ ?”

Max’s hands had started to slide up and down their back at some point, and as he kept looking into their eyes, Neena became hyper aware of it as they waited for him to speak. “I was…” he stopped himself, then began to move, squirming. “Let’s do it. Just do it.” As Neena just kept looking at him, confused, Max let out a pained sigh and said, “As much as it kills me to say, I’ll need you to get off me.”

As Neena clambered off of him, growing increasingly frustrated, Max followed, standing up. At first Neena expected him to continue what they had been doing before. Then he once more surprised them. Max reached over, grabbing onto them, but he steered them to sit down in the chair he had just vacated. As he got Neena into the seat he held his hands out in front of him, his over-bright green eyes intense. Earned their full, undivided attention.

“Okay,” Max spoke carefully, taking a few steps backwards, making Neena want to get out of the seat and chase him down. “I was standing. My—my mother, she came, and I started to talk to her, I  _ couldn’t _ believe it was happening.” He swallowed hard, and Neena felt like they could see something in his eyes, a trepidation. After all, Max was always, at least once before, a man obsessed with the “truth”. Going with the logic of hallucinations must have been near impossible for someone like him to make sense of, let alone explain.

And a show of something in his eyes, a pleading, a vulnerability that made him look younger somehow, made Neena realize how much he was risking; was afraid of how it must look to them. And what would happen, if they refused to believe him. If they just walked out right now, said he was crazy.  _ Like I’ve been treating him. _

No, Neena didn’t fully believe him. But there was still an impression that said that there was something, a truth to his words, no matter how impossible they were. And besides, Neena  _ wanted _ him. Was willing to do this if it meant they could re-learn his body.

But they took too long in hesitating before they smiled, feigning recognition. Max let out a long, disappointed sigh, dropping his head so that a few loose strands of his mussed hair fell over his forehead. Neena opened their mouth, about to tell him that they were ready to believe anything he told them, no matter how crazy, when Max lifted his head and rapidly spoke. “Alright. My mother, she told me—she said that I’ve been trying too hard to be someone I’m not. That I need to stop chasing what I thought made my parents proud. She said—”

Neena interrupted, realizing that they had heard this somewhere before. Almost as if it was a memory from some old dream, buried deep inside of their subconscious. “She said that you’ve been fighting against the world since before you left home.”

Max had grown so still that Neena thought that they had said something wrong, bad. Slowly, his mouth fell open, eyes wide as they seemed to be searching Neena’s face for something, hope and skepticism so clear that it almost hurt Neena to see. He seemed to have regained the ability to blink as he swallowed, hard. “How did you know that? Can you… do you remember?”

Neena looked into his face, found that the memories were flooding in, disjointed, strange, like old fantasies, dreams. Recalling things that didn’t quite click together, make any sort of an altogether sense. But they could piece together a bridge of sorts, clear memories, if that word actually could apply to what they could remember.

They hesitated, but said, “She didn’t look right… her eyes… they were like this... glowing blue, and, and her hair…” Neena stopped, pressing a hand to their head as they felt the vision, memories of things that didn’t  _ feel  _ real; couldn’t be real. They wanted to burst through them, only to find that they couldn’t control it. Once Neena realized them, they didn’t want to quit coming out of the flood of them. It felt joyous, exhilarating, but also alien and disconcerting, less like falling backward into a pool and more like something had leaped out of the water, was pulling them in.

* * *

Moments after they had watched Max take a deep breath of the “sacramental incense”, Neena had laid back on the Chesterfield, their eyes closed for what must have felt like no more than a number of seconds. Not a stranger to the feeling of being high, or horny, they just enjoyed the experience, wondered how their uptight companion would react to the sensation himself—

It was the sound, of Max’s panicked yelp, that drew Neena out of their calm, brought their head snapping back from where Neena had lolled back, a doped grin resting easy on their mouth. 

Looking up, ready to ask the man what his problem was—and probably tell him to sit down on one of the chairs or, even better, next to Neena—they gave a startled yelp themselves when they saw the primly dressed woman standing in front of the chest at the foot of the bed.

Even high, Neena could see that the woman wasn’t, in fact, a  _ woman _ , but seemed to be a ghost. There was something “off” about all of her, unreal and immaterial-looking, her skin was an unnatural hue of dusky, purplish red, her hair was an unnatural head of fiery red, and her eyes—

The woman spoke, addressing the man who had let out a yelp only moments before.  _ Poor, poor Maximillion.  _

Neena blinked rapidly, certain that they were imagining this.  _ What the fuck? _

_ Maximillion, why are you still doing this? You’ve been fighting against the world since before you left home. Haven’t you figured out that the more you fight, the more pain you cause yourself? _

About to ask the woman what the hell this was, what business they had talking to their friend like this, Neena was saved the effort when Max illuminated who this was—and relaxed Neena’s paranoia, that this was a vision that only they could see. Standing on the opposite side of the table that still held the fume-spewing incense, Max looked like he was, certainly, seeing a ghost. Eyes wide as far as they could go, he was gripping the chair that stood to his left, half sat in a crouch on the ground. In a soft voice that revealed his own disbelief, Max said, “Mother? You’re  _ dead.”  _

He looked like he was trying to concentrate or express shock, but Max struggled, lids falling partially over his eyes before he spoke again, once-familiar resolute steel strengthening his words. “I  _ knew _ this was too good to be true! These are just some cheap hallucinogens that have…” He had stood back up fully on his feet but he stopped talking, eyes blinking rapidly before he started to clear his throat.

It was a strange sight, almost odder than the sight of the ghost, to see Vicar Max at a loss for words.

He looked over at Neena, sounding almost desperate as he asked, his eyes darting around, “What’s happening to my voice? Does my voice sound weird to you?” His gaze sharpened for a moment, eyebrows knit tight over his eyes. “And what’s wrong with your face?”

_ What’s wrong with my face?  _ Unable to suppress a giggle that emerged from them, Neena blurted out, “You look the same as always, you old man.” And then the obvious third presence in the room drew Neena’s attention, had to do a double-take on the ghost of Max’s mother to confirm that she was indeed still there. Looking at them in front of that ominous-looking bed, with those expressionless glowing blue eyes. “Hey, Vic, what’s your mom doing here?”

Max’s voice was a near-explosion, if not for the note of desperation Neena heard in it as he stared at the spectre. “By the Great Engineer, how the  _ hell _ should I know?” He turned, looked back at Neena, the desperation growing in his voice. “Is this normal, on hallucinogens?” Before his Captain could answer, he started to stretch his jaw muscles, having seemingly forgotten the question. Max let out an annoyed grunt, then said, “We are obviously the victims of a tasteless joke being perpetuated…” He stalled out like an engine for a moment, blinking, before he looked at them questioningly and asked, “Penetrated? No… Perpetrated?” He scoffed, corrected himself, then asked them, “I mean, we’re being made fools of, aren’t we?”

Neena wanted to tell him that the only problem here was twofold; he was as wordy and neurotic as always, and there was the small issue of his damn mother, making all of this situation feeling far too Freudian for their tastes. 

Well, that wasn’t solely true; there was  _ something _ , some quality to the warm light in the room, it made the Vicar look like his skin was a light gold, his hair taking on the quality of the warm wheat that Neena had seen in fields encased in a protective dome in their youth. They could likely ignore the small matter of a mother ghost if they only had the distraction of a naked Vicar while they tripped.

_ Lord _ , his chin dimple really made him look like one of those heroes that these Halcyon podunks had on the covers of their adventure magazines, the kind who had a fainting virgin in one arm and a gun in the other.

So, true to their own form, Neena just fell over on the Chesterfield and gave into a long peal of laughter, pressing the back of their hand to their mouth. It was just right, that the prettiest boy Neena had ever met was some uptight neurotic and completely off the table.

Looking down from his position, standing next to the chair, Max, in a voice that reflected offense, said, “When I get out of here, I’m going to show that hermit what you get for messing with me.”

_ Ah, there he goes again, with that “violent enthusiasm”.  _ Neena finally got through their fit of giggles, wiping at their eyes and fighting to sit up as they said, “I’d like to see you try to fight anything in this state.” Really, all the Vicar was good for right now was laying down somewhere, talking to them until one or both of them passed out.

Proving that she was not willing to be forgotten, the supposed ghost of his mother spoke up, a rebuke in her voice that proved to Neena, even incredibly high, that she was most certainly his mother. “Always ready to give up, to lash out. Always searching for answers, but always in the wrong place, never looking inside himself.”

Neena sat up, could feel some of their hair, loosened, falling against their face as they struggled to sit up. “Hey,” they glared at the ghost, not liking where this was going. “this is supposed to be therapeutic, and if anyone’s gonna hassle my ship’s holy man, it’s gonna be me.” 

The woman had turned to look at Neena, those blank, ephemeral blue eyes seeming to reflect any expression that Neena could have ever imagined—disappointment, anger, pity, why not all at once?—as she said, “I am sorry if the truth is hard to hear, but my son doesn’t need you to protect him. The only thing that’s hurting him right now is himself. And tell me, has he told his beloved friend and Captain about how he had thoughtlessly abandoned us?”

Before Neena could retort, Max took the initiative, surging forward until he was standing on the other side of the small table from Neena, face contorted in anger. “”Thoughtlessly”? How could you  _ say  _ that? I only wanted you and father to be proud of me! I was going to be the perfect vessel… I was gonna be the better… uhm…” he struggled, the anger on his face waning, for a moment replaced by confusion before he regained his composure, said, “More  _ full _ of the… the plan!” He sighed, then in a voice more full of passion than Neena had ever heard in him when he wasn’t pissed off, he said, “This here, it’s... all coming out  _ wrong.  _ The plan, it filled you with a joy I could never feel. I  _ wanted it! _ ” He flung his arm out, hand almost knocking into the true perpetrator of this vision, the thing on the small table, off before he brought it to rest on his chest. “And being a laborer: It was making me miserable. I was better than that!”

The vision of his mother looked calmly at him, not reflecting back any of the rage, passion, or desperation that radiated off of her son. Softly, she said, “You certainly convinced yourself you were. But don’t feel bad. We continually lie to ourselves, weaving stories in a vain attempt to convince us that we are in control of… anything.” Surprising Neena, the woman suddenly looked over at them before she turned to look back at her son. “These are stories, how we try to make sense of our lives, but they are not real, are they? They are just stories. And you need to drop  _ your _ story and see the truth.”

Neena had been staring at the woman, going from once being angry and defensive to realizing the truth of what she was saying. It was a truth that they had once felt themselves, felt as though they were continually re-learning how it applied to their own life.  _ I tell others I am Captain Hawthorne, that I was born Esperanza Urraca, and it’s Neena Castillo who I am. If I let some old stories tell me who I am, I would have died by now, back on Earth, my soul dead, instead of being here. _

“I hate to say it, but the ghost’s right.” They turned, looked at the face of their obviously shocked friend. “This truth you’ve been seeking might have inspired you, but in looking for it, it landed you in prison. You did things you’re not proud of, all for some set of stories that you’re taking literally.” It occurred to them that they were more coherent than Max was, but in light of everything else that was happening, Neena felt that wasn’t the time to wonder at how their resistance had managed to stay strong after they had been frozen and thawed.

Max stared at Neena before he looked back at his mother, a strange, lost look in his eyes. “You both… you want me to give up my discipline? Who I am, what matters to me? My control? But… I can’t. I can’t!” His voice rose, desperate. “Without order, there is  _ chaos. _ ”

His mother answered, a smooth, soft contrast to the man who sounded like at any moment he might hyperventilate. “You need to  _ love _ the chaos, Maximillion. Let it envelope you, take you where it will. Besides, you really have no choice, anyway.”

Max answered, his voice rising in anger, but mostly it sounded like confusion. “No, that’s not true! The basis of everything is  _ order _ , not chaos! It’s true, I know it is. So did  _ you _ !  _ Why _ are you denying it? Before you died, the Plan made you  _ happy _ !”

_ If the universe isn’t chaotic, how the hell did I get shot into the future with an ex-con as my spiritual advisor, can you reason that out for me, Max? _

His mother was on the same wavelength as Neena. “No, it didn’t. I made myself happy. There is nothing holding you back, but if you can’t understand that, then there’s nothing you will ever understand. Goodbye, Maximillion.”

Neena watched the ghost go from standing very clearly at the end of the bed to no longer existing, in shock, missing when Max collapsed into the chair to the left of the table. As Neena looked at him, they realized that he was holding the sides of his head in his hands, rocking back and forth softly.

This trip had officially gone from fun to not-fun.

Neena stood up, testing their legs on the influence of these drugs. Hoped, selfishly, that  _ their  _ mother wouldn’t appear and harangue Neena for being a slut and a bad role model. They awkwardly stood in front of him, waited until finally, Max, breathing heavily, looked up at them. They were shocked by what they saw in his eyes, bright with hope, with fear.

“This whole thing… it’s just… it’s a  _ farce _ , right? It’s… just my brain working against me?” His lips trembled, eyes growing wet, wide.

“Oh… god, I’m so sorry I brought you here, Max.” Neena bit their lip and gave into an urge they would have normally shoved away. They touched his hair, selfishness again taking precedence as they took advantage of the man’s mental state to feel him. He felt good, well cleaned, mammalian, oddly _ normal  _ for a space man as they ran their fingers through his hair. They could see from this superior height what they had never noticed before; how his dark eyebrows were uneven; perhaps a sign of the thinner one having been the place of a previous, old injury. What had he lived through, what had he endured in his time spent, lost but so certain he was in control? In their state Neena couldn’t fight off the urge to touch, wanted physical intimacy. All they could hope was that he thought it was just a show of affection. 

If he was disturbed by the sudden touch, he didn’t show it, instead settling further down into his seat, propping his elbows on his knees as if he was pondering Neena’s belly and not some chaotic mess that was filling his mind. 

Softly, he said, “And these Law-damned drugs, how this is all making me feel…” He winced, and Neena expected that, at any moment, in spite of the fact that Neena didn’t want to stop, they were ready for him to throw their hand off of his head or remark something about how he wasn’t some goat in a petting zoo. Instead, he almost seemed to lurch into their touch and a soft moan got cut off midway through as Max softly said, “I shouldn’t be doing this, I’ll get myself into  _ more _ trouble. No…” His voice lowered, until it almost sounded like he was cooing. “ _...Captain _ .”

It was Neena who finally stopped, their desire topped by their worry for their friend. They drew their hand back and ducked almost into a crouch, not able to look into Max’s face as he covered his face with his hands. They could hear him mumbling the same word over and over.

“No, no, no, no….” Then he seemed to choke back a sob, and said, “My head… it’s turning itself against me. After all I’ve done… trying to not think like this…”

A voice, reminding Neena unerringly of the man they had met back in the Emerald Vale behind his prison of a desk, said, in that too-familiar, prim and calm voice, “For once you’re giving voice to reason.”

Max almost threw himself out of the chair, nearly colliding with Neena as he whipped around, staring at the source of the voice whom Neena was already staring at. It was a double of Max. Only this one, like his mother’s ghost, was a reddish purple hue in his skin, a spooky white-blue to his eyes. But this one’s hair, instead of being a now mussed honey brown, was green.

_ Okay. What the hell is this? _

At first Max looked like he might start yelling at him, then he stood up and gazed at his double, cocking his head to the side as he asked, “What… what is this? Who… are you?” He hesitated, then asked, “Why d’you look like me?” He abruptly stopped, looked down at his opened hands, muttering to himself. “I AM still me, aren’t I?”

Before Neena could have had a chance to do what they were supposed to do, be the voice of reason, or at least, a guide, the Other Max spoke up. “Hello Max. I can see you’re feeling confused. Don’t worry, the only thing that you don’t seem to be confused utterly about is that you are still Maximillion DeSoto. Oh, and you’re tearing yourself to pieces.” For once his acerbic, pointed bluntness was directed at, well, himself.

Max stared at him, then blinked rapidly, as if to confirm for himself that the man who spoke as softly and calmly as though he were giving a sermon was still there, real. “Wait, what the f—why do you look like me? Are you… also me?”

Neena was too shocked by this continuing deep dive into his shared hallucination to do anything other than to numbly hold a hand out towards the Other Max, who seemed to be the one now who exhibited Max’s once normal controlled speech, in comparison to the man who seemed to have lost the ability to speak without sounding like he was about to start screaming or sobbing.

The Other Max made a soft, non-committal shrug. “Not really. I’m who you think you are. Who you imagine yourself to be. I am disciplined. I am controlled. I don’t have a  _ single _ indecent bone in my body. I have no doubts. And—I don’t exist. Yet you’ve judged yourself against me your whole life.” It seemed like Other Max’s features softened as he gazed at Max, a strange double of the look Max sometimes gave those whom he tried to talk to about themselves, softly pitying. “Why? Why do you berate yourself so for not being me? When I never existed in the first place and I don’t have anything you possess?”

Neena found their voice, again ready to praise a damn figment of someone’s hallucination. “You’re right about that. This guy is a lot more fun than you, that’s for sure.” They quickly added, “And he’s a lot better than he thinks he is. He’s a good friend, somewhere beneath all of those layers of bullshit. A good man, one I trust when the chips are down and someone has a target painted on me.”

Max staggered back, looking like he was about to just fall on the ground until Neena hurried over, grabbed him by his arm to steady him. With a gasp, he said, “I don’t—don’t feel right about this. Anymore. I can’t do this, need to get…. get out of here…”

Neena ducked their head, instinctively pressed their forehead against the side of his as they wrapped their arms around him, relieved when he didn’t just shuck their arms off. They were never the nurturing kind; this side of them felt as alien as feeling uncertain must have felt for Max. It was a fair trade, after all.

He was as exposed to them as should have ever been possible.

They spoke softly to him as Max limply reached, taking their arms in his, now pitifully clutching them back. “Come on, you’re better than this. You’re not him, but if you were, I would have kicked your ass by now.” He let out a choked, surprised laugh, and it invigorated Neena, relieving them. “Stand  _ up _ , for chrissakes. You’re a pirate and a hero.”

Max kept clutching Neena as they helped him to his feet. He didn’t let go of his Captain’s arms, but Neena didn’t test his desire to hold onto them, both staring at the blank-faced vision of a person that was everything that alienated Max from his crewmembers. From happiness.

Other Max reached a hand behind his head, awkwardly scratched in another eerie habit that mirrored Max. “You asked for this, yet here you are once more, using someone stronger than you as a crutch. But soon enough you’ll find a reason to harangue them for not living up to some ideal that you assail yourself against, alienate yourself as you always do. Always have.” Neena could feel Max gasp, his chest rising and filling. “They won’t be there for you forever, you know, not when you keep biting them every time they hold a hand out to you. Where will you go next, after you’ve already promised yourself that you have found your home aboard that ship, finally? Why do you keep doing this?” He seemed to wait for an answer, and he was waiting in vain. “The same reason you always do? Fear of the unknown? Or is it a fear of not having control?”

Max suddenly took a step forward, disengaging himself from their shared embrace, shocking Neena. His face was again filled with emotion, this time desperation, “Is this an answer? Because it sure sounded like an answer. That… I don’t understand. Who are you again? Why do you look like me?” He sounded like he was on the border of sobbing. Everything had finally overwhelmed him.

Neena looked back at both Maxes. God, their head hurt. They said, to neither in particular, “Okay, you boys need to kiss and make up, whatever you need to do. This, from the experience of a true aesthetic in these matters, is an  _ awful _ way to waste drugs.”

Other Max looked at them, and with that condescending manner that once characterized Max before he had turned into a brooding, quiet man, he said, “Kiss and make up? No, this man is proving himself to be wholly incapable of such a thing as human as mere  _ affection _ , wouldn’t you agree?  _ This _ man is only here to reaffirm his own rigid beliefs; a man of adamantium he wishes to become, made of impenetrable stone. Anything or anyone too foolish to try to help him will only be crushed as he dashes to move the very edges of reality to fit around him, encasing him like his belief system is nothing but one of those clones that needs to be tended to in the domes of the Urraca Union’s fields.”

Neena jumped at that mention. _ Domes _ ? “What the hell do you think you’re talking about?”

He almost managed to feign ignorance, looking up at the ceiling in mock confusion. “Neena... Castillo? Or was it—”

Max interrupted, jabbing his finger at the phantom. “You need to shut up.” He almost managed to sound sober.

Other Max turned his head back to the man that he was a strange parody of. “And let me guess: you need a new story, do you, little boy? Will it be one with a happy ending; an easy tale with the ending being a  _ finally  _ happy Max? Not one of those stories that actually float around in your head, the ones involving smashing someone’s head through a wall, or perhaps the other kind, the one you wouldn’t want me mentioning in our  _ mixed  _ company—”

Max shouted, then when he finished, wincing, the man took a step back, a horrified look on his face. “Alright. Please. If you don’t—not in front of Neena—the Captain. I’ll—I’ll listen to whatever you want to tell me. But you can’t—it can’t be right.” His voice wavered, grew more uncertain by the moment. “I’ve only been searching for the answer to the Equation. I don’t want anything to do with _those_ ignoble thoughts. I want—I was meant to be a vessel for the great will, the truth. The… the truth. Because it will set us free?” he stopped, eyes searching Other Max’s face, desperation clear in his face. “Won’t it?”

The man spoke, now his voice in Max’s once-characteristic patronizing, sneering tone. “Oh, how _ could  _ it? By removing the need to make any messy decision? To have your life completely controlled? Some illusion of certainty? Your  _ illusion _ has allowed you to ignore the real question. Who. Are. You?”

Max shouted, “I’m Max! I’m ME! I’m real, you can’t convince me otherwise…” he made a soft whimper, his voice lowering from the thunder he had been roaring in. “Please—don’t convince me I’m not.”

“Your sense of “self” is what’s not real. It is simply a concept.” 

Max scoffed, but then he closed his eyes, said, “By the Engineer….” he stopped, said in an incredulous voice, “ _ Architect _ ? How could I have believed in… in an  _ Engineer _ ? It’s like Neena’s always told me. An Engineer designs things, doesn’t design a universe, a human being. It all sounds ridiculous. I must be losing my mind completely… what you’re saying almost makes sense.”

Other Max shook his head, turned to look solely at Neena. “Listen to this one. He’ll keep you waiting for him to see the truth when it’s right in front of him, then he’ll keep letting it get away from him, all so he can feel sedated in that safe haven he’s made inside of his blind fold that he lives behind. And look who he allows to continue to grow frustrated. Agent of chaos. You’re dashing, elusively feminine but also so dangerously masculine. And the way you look at him, it turns his blood into  _ fire _ . Doesn’t he know that you wouldn’t even have to make an effort to find someone else to be with?”

Neena stared back at him, uncomfortable with this line of conversation that had just drawn them in. “What are you talking about?”

They regretted asking, as the man took a surprising few steps until he was directly in front of them. He spoke softly, strange blue eyes seeming to look directly into Neena’s. “I’m saying that he’ll keep you in suspense, then he’ll only disappoint you.” He made Neena jump, as he drew a hand up, a strange smirk settling on his lips. “His Law will pull him down in its undertow, and if you were smart… why, you would get back onto that ship and find what you’re looking for with him somewhere else. Besides, if you were to kiss him, in the state you two are in, your whole selves would just  _ open up _ , like one of his books. He’d never agree to it.” He was leaning forward, so close and so much like the man that Neena wanted that all they could do was stare at his mouth, his nose, the lines on his face, and imagine that it was the real Max talking to them like this, conspiratorially. “But  _ me _ , I’m always open to what he’s afraid of.” He leaned in, until his lips were brushing Neena’s. “You want a man when you look at him, why don’t I share some of that with you instead?”

Neena couldn’t formulate a thought, they just leaned forward, pressed their lips to his. That hand that he had raised up reached behind Neena brought them closer to him, kept kissing them. He felt like Max, at least what they had always desperately fantasized he would feel like, ought to have felt like. 

Still, Neena, realizing what the hell they were doing, and in front of whom, ripped their mouth away almost as quickly as they had done it, their heart beating so hard in their chest that they thought they were going to burst.

The “man” fixed a lopsided, strangely attractive grin on his mouth, letting out a low chuckle. “Now, you taste like the good kind of chaos, but you also taste of all of that Earthen sunlight—”

Whatever he was going to say was ended when the real Max surprised both as he appeared near Neena and cold-cocked Other Max in the face. As the phantom went falling to the ground, Max shouted out, “One can have too much of the truth, you blowhard!”

Neena took a step back. Never one to back away from violence, it was the realization of what they had done, in front of the real version of the man that they had nearly made out with, that made them wish there was a place they could flee to. If Scylla wasn’t so infested with angry wildlife, they might have fled outside.

Neena had never imagined that they would ever feel so thirsty that they would make out with someone’s doppelganger. 

The apology came to them quickly, and Neena almost vomited it out. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

But, as Neena looked at the ground, they realized that the phantom was gone. And a quick look at Max showed that he was now wearing a strange smile, almost a pair for the one that his other self had been wearing. 

For the first time since the hallucinations had started, he looked…  _ happy _ . Almost manically—“violently enthusiastically”—so. His eyes blazed with an emotion so powerfully that it made Neena flinch, moments before he walked, till he was standing in front of them, his hand resting on their upper arms.

Didn’t they know that expression in his eyes  _ too well _ , in fact?

“Now, where were we? If another phantom comes in here, Law damn it—” he stopped, corrected himself. “Damn it, I will pummel them until they shut up.”

Neena stared at him, every hair on their body on end, another emotion rising in them, not to be forgotten about. “Is everything he said about you true?”

Max tilted his head to the side, that smile fading only a bit. “What do you think?”

They didn’t even hesitate before they asked it, feeling like their blood was pulsing, oppressively, in their ears. “Want to spend the rest of this time in this room more productively?”

Max chuckled, ducking his head closer, one eyebrow raised. “What do you think?”

When Neena leaned up, kissing him, they realized that they were no longer in the room with their obviously very confused, but perhaps now, for the first time, less than he’d ever been, friend. They were back at the farm they had grown up next to, but they weren’t alone as they had always once felt there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dearest _____,
> 
> I hope this letter finds you well. They have closed my place of work to the public and I fear the only joy I find is through a totally profane hobby. As fevers rise, my thirst level only staggers in its intensity. Please, send your thoughts and prayers to me, for I may need them before I go and build a hunkenstein to feed my bottomless hunger. For it is indeed bottomless.
> 
> Sincerely, k. 
> 
> \--Hope the plague finds you all well, everything escalated in a week, didn't it? And under the radar is the fact that Putin has made himself the head of Russian government for another generation as everyone freaks out over toilet paper, which might be facetious for me to say, but gallows and flip humor is how I cope. Let me cope.
> 
> This fandom is blowing up, and I predict that everyone is going to be working on their writing this month, at least looking for things to read. It's a mixed blessing, but let's take what we can and co-exist nicely while we skulk in our homes for a while.
> 
> This is another one of those chapters I sweat to write, editing it was a pain as well. I hope it reads well, I enjoyed it.
> 
> As always, be sure to leave your kudos if you haven't already by now (c'mon, be polite, this is my house after all), subscribe to me or this fic to know when we update, and leave a comment! I found a friend through the comment section (HI DANY) and I would love to meet new people through this fandom, because it's a great one. I think it'd be cool to meet more people because of *The Outer Worlds*, especially as the game grows in popularity! At least, I love to hear feedback, I really do.
> 
> Stay safe my lovelies!


	14. 13. Sympathy for the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes love doesn't descend on wings; it can also grow from the basest of urges.

When Neena awoke they found that they were laying, once more, in a bed. Only this time they were not alone. Lying on their side Neena felt him curled around their back, arm drawn around their abdomen.

His voice added an extra layer to the weirdness of the situation. “You’re awake. That’s good.” Good god, his voice sounded almost as though he were nothing more than a concerned counselor. 

Who just happened to be spooning his patient. 

Suppressing a moan, Neena buried their face against the pillow. “How long was I out?” Their body felt like it was on fire; Neena wanted to lean back, engulf themselves in his presence, their shared heat.

Max spoke in a hushed voice. “Not long. Thankfully.” He surprised Neena when they felt his hand brushing up the back of their hair, pushing some of it aside as he leaned forward to press a kiss against the back of their neck. As if he knew exactly what Neena wanted, craved.

“I’ve had enough now. I don’t think I could get more excited if I tried.” They might as well have been begging for it.

Max pulled away a few inches, and in a husky, thick voice, asked, “Any chance you remember any of that night, now?”

Neena felt a smile growing on their face, in spite of the desire that was cutting deep into their patience and willpower. “I remember _enough_. I know you get jealous when your doppelganger tries to make out with me.” They yelped as they felt Max reach forward, lightly nipped the back of their neck. “Ooh, _stop that_!” Contrary to what they said, Neena ground back against him. 

After letting go to tenderly kiss at the same spot, Max said, “Then you know enough. We can see if it’s possible to jog more of your memory.”

Neena shivered, starting to like what this “memory jogging therapy” had thus far entailed. “So I guess that means you’ll have to take the initiative—”

Max started to kiss up their neck, making their blood pound to an unbearable degree in their ears, melting until Neena had reached back, was grabbing onto the ex-Vicar’ hip as if for mercy. But he was relentless, tongue kissing the back and side of their neck until he had reached Neena’s ear, which he sucked on until they cried out.

Whispering into Neena’s abused ear, Max said, “To the contrary: if you can remember, then you know that it was I who found myself at your dubious mercies.” 

The feel of his hand running up the side of Neena’s arm left them squirming, frustration spreading, threatening to bind any ability to hold themselves back. Whimpering, Neena asked, “What do you mean?”

Max let out a soft exhale of breath that might have been a chuckle, hand reaching up, touching the side of their face. “Do I need to spell it out? How you laid me back on the bed, eased all of the worries and fears out of me… then you penetrated me. Took me, after I begged for it, teased beyond my tolerance.” He leaned forward and again kissed the back of Neena’s neck. “I just wish I’d given in earlier, easier.”

It happened; Neena could remember it. The taste of the Vicar’s ass and a surreptitious lollipop lick of his pulsing dick was full-bodied and heavy in their mouth as they loomed over him. Maximillion DeSoto, he had been stripped bare before them— _god, he was beautiful naked, trembling with need, eyes dark with a hungry desire, arching off the bed, wet with sweat, voice pleading, “Captain—_ Neena _, I can’t take it anymore, take me, take me.”_

But almost more than that impression, of the completely aroused and helpless Max, sprawled out naked, was the realization of something else. A confession, made before they had ever even got near that bed, on the love seat as they had kissed each other senseless. How Max had whispered it, almost shamefully into Neena’s ear.

Neena turned around the bed, faced the man who was drawing these memories from them. In disbelief, they said, “You were a virgin.”

Max had been staring, with a hazing expression, at Neena’s lips, then he slowly rose his gaze, the feel of his eyes on theirs making Neena feel overcome with desire. “I swore my focus, my chastity, to the Great Equation, promised that I would not ever give into any base urges which could steer me from my goal.”

Stunned, Neena heard themselves say, “No wonder you were such a tight ass.”

Max grinned at them, softly drawing his body closer to Neena’s. “Not by the time you were finished with me.”

Neena almost stuttered, lost to the realization that they had just made. “Wait—and your first time, it was with me, and you were—I was—”

“You were exceedingly gentle, until I wanted more. You had the idea, you _degenerate_ ," he said it with a grin, nothing but dark joy in his eyes. "but I ended up giving as though there had never been any resistance to begin with.” He stared at them meaningfully, pulling Neena's gaze into his effortlessl. “It felt spectacular to have the control taken from me. Shown that I could give it up, would be rewarded for it. A lesson I needed—desperately—to learn.”

Neena shivered, had to close their eyes, unable to not recall it as he described it. After all, Neena had known this all along. Being inside of him, teasing, touching his cock and yes, his ass, probing, massaging, then caressing him with the item that they had found in the chest, along with the lube, the condoms. They had wrapped it in a condom, lubed it, and only began to press it inside of him when he had indeed been almost sobbing for them, begging to be relieved. Loved in a deeply profound, utterly physical way.

More than even the fact itself, Neena remembered the way he arched almost off of the bed, a spoiled angel sprawled out, arms wide as though he was in the midst of a transcendent experience, the tool that Neena was fucking him with plunged half of its way inside of him. His half-shut green eyes, hazy, doped on the drugs, on lust, on emotion, raw as his mouth hung open, throat muscles spasming as he let out guttural, lush moans and soft cries. Connected to another person as deeply as could ever be possible.

_Holy shit. The Vicar’s first time was as a bottom._

Neena lurched, a desire to immediately refabricate that memory seizing them. Max surprised them by moving away, sitting up behind them. They turned, looked at him, shocked at the infernal way that his eyes seemed to glitter with a strange joy even as a calm expression rested on his face. 

“Do you want me to do that again?” The question felt odd in their mouth. Neena knew—used to know—that once someone got a taste for the love that dare not speak its name that it had a habit of becoming a habit, or even an addiction. But although Neena would have never said “never”, the thought that the man that was looking, eagerly, at them was one of those insatiable prostate junkies made their head feel like it was spinning.

Max seemed to sit up further, a pleased, proud look on his face. “Well, I thought we’d take it slow, but, I mean,” he chuckled, “if you insist…”

Neena’s mouth fell open, wondering just how far they were allowed to take this until the man inevitably retreated like he should have. No one in Halcyon except the lowest of the low reprobates seemed to have the constitution for imaginative, rough and, yes, deeply emotional sex. The kind that expanded your sense of self, the intimate connection to others. Oh, and tested out parts of yourself that the _Engineer_ likely wouldn’t have approved of. 

Still, they slowly leaned forward, resting their hand on his chest to feel him, as if they weren’t sure he was real, wasn’t some figment of their starved libido. There, Neena could feel the soft fabric of his shirt, the warmth of his skin. 

Raising their eyes back up to meet his from where they were half sitting, half laying as they sprawled out towards him, Neena saw that he was still smirking down at them. From their past experiences, Neena knew that it wasn't all that unheard of for a man who wanted to play like this to be so excited and even sure of themselves in how blatant they were. But this man looked like he was, while undoubtedly excited, moreso deliberate in how he acted. 

He acted, less like a recent ex-virgin, and more of a sophisticated type used to talking about the specifics of what he desired and enjoyed. And that was when it clicked for them. 

This was what the man that Max wanted to be was like. Buried deep under all of that bullshit and, yes, uptight, withheld anger, was a flower that had never been allowed to bloom. And they were the person he had chosen, after all of this, to show it to.

Neena drew their hand up his chest, dragging their fingers across the collar of his shirt. As their fingertips grazed the skin that peeked out from the edge, they felt him softly shiver. Neena couldn't fight the smirk that grew on their mouth. _Maybe he's not so utterly removed._

They removed their hand, made it look thoughtless as they lowered it, looked into his eyes as they playfully said, "Okay, lover boy. The only problem is that I don't pack the necessary equipment on hand at all times to make you see God." Neena dropped their eyelids lower, leaned in closer to him. Could swear that they could see his eyes widen, the small smile that had been growing on his face rising in anticipation. 

Was his voice thicker, or was Neena just imagining it? "I might have a backup."

Neena leaned in close, excited when he didn't flinch or back away. "Well, unless you happened to come in here, packing heat in your back pocket—you don't happen to be carrying a piece worthy of my ardor, are you?" Neena watched Max's heavy green eyes, saw something hungry in them as his eyelids slid half-closed. He shook his head and his mouth fell partially open, as if he were caught in the middle of perhaps begging for something. With a growing smile, Neena said, "For now, though, I don't like to leave a boy hanging."

Max had to shake his head, dislodging a dreamy quality to his eyes as he blinked rapidly. When he spoke, it sounded as though his voice was higher. "What did you have in mind?"

Neena acted on instinct, closing the distance between them as they took his lips with their own, enjoying the guttural moan that emerged from his chest as he kissed back. They felt him break loose, and Max started to murmur a question, which Neena ignored. With a smile growing in the middle of their kissing, Neena began to maneuver the man until they had him laying back on the bed, were kissing him and running their hands through his hair, down the back of his neck. They were sitting on top of Max before he even knew what had come over him. As they sat up, they heard Max’s sharp intake of breath, a surprised gasp.

“What’re you planning…”

Neena trailed their hands down his chest, watching his wild eyes as they stared up at them. With a teasing smirk, they dragged their hand to his waistband, then sat up back until they could work their hands at the button fly. Looking up at his face, Neena said, “I’m going to give you what you need.” _A taste of what I need as well._

He looked like he wanted to ask what Neena meant, but instead he swallowed, hard, until the adam’s apple in his throat jerked, bounced. 

Working the band of his pants off of his hips, images, old half-remembered memories of him, naked and at their mercy, flashed in Neena’s memory. They ran the pants off of his legs, threw them off, nearly hitting the fucking Moon Man, who looked in this context like he was cheering the Captain on. _Go for gold!_

Max spoke up finally, said, “ _Law damn it,_ would you please tell me what you’re going to do to me?”

Neena looked up at him, trying to look as calm as they could, hoping to further infuriate him. “Why, I’m going to fuck your ass with the tools nature gave me.” And before he could further try to question them, Neena, mindful of the erection that pulsed against the fabric on his crotch, did what they were dying to do for too many months to recall. Neena wrapped a hand around the clothed shape encased in his tight-fitting grey boxer briefs.

Max let out a moan that might have sounded in some other context as enraged, but a quick glance at his face revealed that he had thrown his head back. 

Since Neena had stripped his pants off, they realized that he had already done the work while they were out, taking his boots and socks off, so all he was wearing was his white shirt and those undies of his that hugged his painfully full dick. He was a dark pink rose's red, covered from head to toe in a blush, and in spite of how he had been trying to come off as removed, in control, all he seemed able to do was stare at Neena, helpless. This sight was one of the first that Neena had seen in Halcyon which made them feel at home. A hunk at their mercy. 

They ran their hand around the weight and shape of his dick, which looked like Max was trying to stage a break out from the prison of his underwear. Neena whistled appreciatively, wishing that their own familiar eagerness wasn’t coloring how they handled this man that they wanted to take their time with—would _need_ to take their time with. 

“Wow, you got a nice package for a holy man, Vicar. Seems a damn waste on a man of the cloth.”

Max made what was supposed to be an annoyed vocalization, a delicious sound that ran contrary to the cool and relaxed attitude that he was trying to come off with these days, but it was ruined when he ended it with a half-sob. “I’m _not_ a Vicar, you damn succubus.”

Neena stopped, in the middle of satiating their curiosity with the feel of his straining dick in their hand. “Given what I’m about to do to you, I think Incubus would be more fitting. And, you not being some angry guy in vestments: did I have something to do with that?” They meant it playfully, instinctively went right to making their partner into a pool of emotional, helpless goo.

What they weren’t expecting was how the most recent victim of Neena’s insatiable libido reacted, as Max, grimacing in what almost seemed like agonizing pain, said, “You had _everything_ to do with it, so quit playing _innocent_!”

Neena almost let go of their hard-won treasure as they turned, looked at Max in open shock. Neena stuttered out a nonsense answer, could feel their face growing red as they fell out of the character that they were too natural at playing. “Shut up. Don’t talk like that—I, I didn’t make you lose your religion.” Only when they realized that they had never stopped massaging the covered shape of his dick did Neena start to feel some of their shock retreating. It was hard to be, _what_ , disgusted with yourself, horrified, when you couldn’t stop filling your hand with the penis of the man that you felt like you had tempted to the dark side.

Surprising them, Max thrust into Neena’s hand and let out a pained chuckle. “Come now. Did you think that just taking some hallucinogens and talking to some version my head cooked up of.... of my mother and my id and superego would make me throw away a belief system I had wrapped around me tight and let sink me like an anchor?” As he stopped talking, his mouth hung open limply and a moan escaped Max’s throat.

Neena, thoughtlessly, slid their hand down the shape of his dick, fingers cupping his balls possessively, eliciting another moan from their owner. “I can’t have fucked you into a heathen, though. I mean, come on.” In spite of the horror they ought to have been feeling, Neena had to bite their lower lip to stop from letting out their own little moan. Damn, the sight, the feel of Max, all tempting and vulnerable, made them want to just do the easy thing, jumping on his dick and going for takeoff. 

Max grinned at her, a broad, happy look. “It’s like you said yourself, Captain Castillo. You fucked my ass till I saw God. I saw you in the midst of my passion, and you saved me from a life of self-imposed servitude, baptized me in our shared bodily fluids—” in an instant his beautiful, once soothing voice was cut off as he bit out a loud, filthy oath. “Fuck!”

Neena had found the part of his body that had allowed this holy man to find his own sacrilegious god, running their fingers up the irresistible, tight valley of his ass. Based on how his dick seemed to pulse helplessly against the cruel binding of his underwear, Neena saw the truth of how much this man was in need of someone who could give his back door the love and attention he likely never thought he craved.

In spite of their own growing need, to take this man up on his too eager offer, Neena shook their head and told him, “You need to stop talking to me like that. I don’t need the ego boost, I’ve got too much of a messiah complex these days as it is.”

Max was arching off the bed, chest heaving, his shirt looking like it was more superfluous by the second, begging to be ripped off as soon as possible before he died of hyperventilation in it. It was a surprise that he was even able to speak, even if it was in a strained croak. “You promised… to be my guide. And you guided me…. Into the sanctum of your mind, showed me the… the pleasures of the physical world that I ignored.”

Neena stopped, pulling their hand away, the movement something they immediately regretted. “It does _not_ make me your god, DeSoto. For fuck’s sake, let’s save the worship for roleplaying.”

Max almost glared at them, nostrils flaring, making him look indignant, oddly adorable. “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Neena felt a smirk tugging fresh at their lips as they leaned forward and said, “I think you just need to get used to getting laid. So how about you take that shirt off and you tell me how recently you’ve washed your,” Neena accented their word with a rough grope of one of his ass cheeks. “pussy.”

Max jerked hard in response to the grab, biting off half of yet another indecent curse word. Still, he reached down, grabbing the bottom of his shirt and tugged, pulling it up his torso, then loose of his shoulders as Neena refused to let go of his ass, claiming it in an indelicate grab. As Max tossed the shirt away, leaving Neena with the sight of his very appealing, warm-toned skin and nice build, he said, “I’ve been a minute since a good shower.”

Neena shrugged, then took their other hand to join the party, finding that other lonesome ass cheek and squeezing to show it some affection. “I’ll induct you into the world of being on the receiving end of having your boy pussy eaten some other time, then.”

Max bit out another curse, eyes rolling in the back of his head. It was almost too much for Neena, to see the transformation of this once-proud man into a helpless slut. He managed to surprise his Captain, however, as he said, “I’m not new to that party, actually, thanks to you.” He had the _gall_ to crack a smile at that.

Neena hid their surprise with a broadened grin, roughly pinchinf his ass until he let out a hiss. “Why am I not surprised by that? Alright, you think you know so much, off these fucking panties go.”

This time he only managed a helpless moan as Neena reached onto his hips and roughly pulled his underwear down, not caring how it scraped his oversensitized dick. Sure enough, as Neena pulled the waistband of his underwear past his hips they heard a pained grunt, followed by the sight of his dick springing loose.

Even the memory of Max, naked, couldn’t do it justice to seeing it for themselves, fresh. Neena’s mouth watered just from the soft trapped smell of his skin that came off of his body, seemed to radiate strongly from his crotch. 

Neena buried that need to worship his very appetizing dick by stripping the rest of his offending underwear from his sweet body, irritated as they had to work them off of his toned thighs. _Damn_ , Neena was so eager for him that it bordered on angering them. What right did a guy like this have to have the keys to their head, or the right to a body like this that seemed to mirror what he had been saying before; that he took his worship these days from the sensations aroused in him from their sex as he arched, shivered for it?

This would have to stop someday, Neena knew. Had no choice other than TO stop, unless they wanted to burn both of them to a cinder. 

But for now, Neena went back to where their hands had been teasing before, groping his ass after they had left his underwear in a pile on their bedroom floor. Looked up, then watched as Max gazed up at them, eyes bright with a question, the expression there open as a strange, seemingly helpless smile started on his face. Good; some part of Neena had begun to feel guilty for scraping that big bellwether of his with the waistband of his underwear. In fact, they felt so _guilty_ that Neena’s other hand found his exposed dick and offered an apology by way of a tender stroke up its length.

Max’s mouth fell open and in a soft moan, he said, “You’re too good to me, Neena.”

They leaned forward, so close to it that Neena almost succumbed to temptation and licked the sweet flesh that pointed right at them, said, “You don’t even remember what _good_ is until I make you cum,” Neena took their hand off of the overhot organ, sympathizing too much with the frustrated grunt that their helpless partner gave. “without doing a thing to this.”

Max gave Neena a rictus grin, his smooth voice rough as he said, “Oh, thank the Law.”

Neena quirked their brow at him, once familiar control returning to them as they sank into their equally as appealing role of adjudicator. “You’re a funny sort of boy toy. You look like you should be someone’s dad, not laid out like you’re begging to be split open, like a log.”

He grinned, then laughed. “Ah, I don’t know if this is…. would have been normal for me, ever. I don’t think anyone but you in Halcyon has the soul that would compel a man like me to do this. If there’s one thing you taught me, though, it’s that you never want _just_ one thing.”

Neena slid their fingers into his asscheeks, grazing the soft lining of his hole. “But do you want _this_?”

Max stared at Neena, a strange challenge to see on the face of a man who had just given into the nickname of _boy toy_. He had his arms sprawled out on either side of him on his Captain’s bed, hands tensed on the bedspread. Looking, in spite of Neena’s begging that he not refer to it like it was some sort of a holy experience, like he was indeed prepared to take a different kind of sacrament. “Just take me there and I’ll follow.”

Neena met that show of bravado like they always did to eager partners; giving them what they wanted, but maybe more or too quickly. Pleased with some of the natural dampness they found, Neena drove their index and middle finger into him, slipping past the tight ring of muscle.

Max let out an immediate groan. “Fuck, you’re just gonna… go for it.”

Neena grinned, their clothes feeling far too tight on their body for comfort. “You can take it. You have one of those pussies meant for this.”

Max threw his head back, groaning, too hungry to deny the connotation as he pumped his ass onto their fingers. “So filthy.”

“You fucking _love_ it.” Neena slipped their fingers in, giving a teasing probe, feeling, with relief, that he was properly eager to be able to relax for them. Relax for his Captain.

Max let out a lush groan, hands tight on Neena’s bedspread. “Yes, yes I do.”

“Hang on.” Neena had to hide the grin that grew on their face as he let out a choked, dismayed cry as they drew those devil-blessed fingers out, got off of the bed and sat on the floor, hands reaching to the chest they kept under the bed, a collection that Neena had started in secret from packages they ordered, shipped discreetly to _The Unreliable_. Condoms and the important two punch x-factor here: well-reviewed lube, the kind that could go on anything and keep it slick and yummy for a _long_ fucking time. And a collection of disposable dark purple latex gloves, the kind with pricy material that would feel like silk. The color picked purposefully, so that the man Neena meant to use them on knew what was coming as soon as he saw them.

As much as Max wanted this, and lord knew how much Neena, in spite of their earlier insistence, just wanted to get down to their knees and taste his sweet ass until he was screaming loud enough to get through the sound deafening of their room, they knew that a fresh ass like this, especially one that belonged to a man who had gotten their gold star treatment previously, was to be coaxed to a first orgasm.

And besides, he deserved more than a little bit of purgatory to go along with his heaven.

Sitting back on their previous spot on the bed, with their once-best friend and now fuck toy staring at them, Neena snapped a glove onto their right hand and unscrewed the top of their barely used lube, humming some commercial jingle that had been drilled into their subconscious as they pretended to be dispassionate.

“Neena,” he asked, his voice husky with emotion. “what are you doing?”

Acting as though they were preoccupied with were doing something menial, Neena stuck their tongue out and let out a long stream of drool, pooling it onto the waiting two fingers that they had been teasing his ass with. Neena looked down at him and, with what they hoped was a good icy look in their eyes, said, “I love a personal touch to the first good thrusts in.”

Before Max could start to question them, Neena bent forward and dove their fingers past the lovely globes of his ass cheeks, saliva wet fingers tenderly pushing, stretching and teasing the ring of his hole. 

Max surprised Neena anew as he threw his head back and moaned out, “Yessssssss….”

Neena wanted to answer back in a quip, but every instinct came out in full force and all they wanted to do was be inside Max, as much of him as they could enter. They teased the muscle that acted as a first weak barrier with their fingers out, couldn’t stop the fresh surge of lust when they felt him give, welcoming them into his body.

Even if he had not been a man Neena admired, both as a person in general and as a friend, but also in a way that they should have given more thought to, they would have made it a point to take this adventure as long and slowly—decadently—as possible. When the saliva wore thin and didn’t give Neena the purchase they needed into his achingly tight ass, they began using the lube, felt rewarded when it allowed further exploration and stretching when Max groaned, begged for more of Neena’s gloved fingers.

“Ah—it feels like… waves… like my whole body is a… a damn ero… erog… eroginou—damn, I can’t fucking think,” he ended in a whimper, giving up as he tried to push himself harder on his lover’s hand.

It was going to be a long, slow trip to his prostate, whether he wanted it to be or not. After all, this ride wasn’t just for his pleasure or his to damn well dictate. In his state, he also didn't realize that just teasing and stretching his opening was half the joy, that Neena didn't just have to keep hitting his cum button. By the time Neena was knuckles deep in, Max was mewling, his hair stuck to his head.

This had once been a man who had told Neena that there was hope for those who were addicted to the venereal pleasures of the body, eschewing the so-called pure pleasures of quiet contemplation of some grand, all-knowing Plan—

The familiar tightness, clamping and pulsing around their fingers, was followed with him letting out a choked cry. He was about to melt into their bed, and if Neena timed it, he might actually see god after all.

Fingers still pressed up against that tight knot inside of him, Neena bent forward and took his softened dick in their mouth, sucking, pleasure at the unexpectedly rich taste of him sending shockwaves through them. 

He sounded like he was howling as the ex-Vicar came around Neena’s fingers and inside of their mouth.

Moments later, Neena, stood to the side of the bed and rolling the glove off of their hand, watched the beautiful man on their bed return to the conscious world, his head flopping to the side as he gazed at them, his chest heaving as he was struggling to maintain his breathing. 

He gazed at them so openly, with a blatant warmth in his dazed eyes, that it took from Neena the joke that they had been wanting to say to him when he came to. 

Max finally said, “Could I trouble you... for some reciprocation?”

At first Neena thought he was just fucking with them, and they curved their mouth into a smirk as they were about to challenge him. Then they saw the open, hungry way he looked at them, eyes dragging over Neena’s fully clothed body with a rawness that he had earned, after having ravenously devoured a slow, penetrating fuck from them, and cumming like a ravenous slut. 

_Jesus, he really_ does _want more._ Or, more appropriately, to give them some torment to answer what they had put him through.

If they were just a few years younger—and cared less—Neena would have torn their clothes off and jumped his bones.

In spite of the yawning need, Neena had to look away, the hunger on his face hurting them too much, threw more fuel on the fire that burned inside of them. “Max, you have got to work on your dirty talk, it’s… wanting.” They gestured loosely with their wrist.

“Ah, I’m sorry.” Damn him, he needed to stop talking in that breathy, needing way. “I’ll work on it.”

As Neena moved to throw the guilty glove into their trash, they realized that they were wet enough for their own turn as the bottom, sans any need for the lube. The problem was—

Max, some of that compelling softness gone from his voice, thankfully gone, said, “How long have we been in here?”

Neena looked at the time on their terminal, and looked at the nude man who was now sitting on the edge of their bed, his tousled hair sticking up around his head like some crazed crown. With a guilty, grimacing smile, Neena said, “It’s been a while.”

Max cocked an eyebrow at them, a strangely familiar glint of something sharper in his eyes as he asked, “How long is, “a _while_ ”?”

“Like, long enough that even a massage slash talk therapy session probably looks _real_ fucking suspicious. Especially when _you_ roll outta here covered in sweat, floating on a fucking cloud.”

He shrugged, dragged a hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “Oh. Are you sure—”

Neena rolled their eyes, horny, frustrated, dismayed at their own weakness towards this man, all rolled into one. “Yes, you need to get out, before we go from “suspicious” to “confirmed”.” As they watched Max with what they hoped was dispassion as he struggled into his clothes, Neena said, “And do me a favor and wash your _favorite smell_ off of your body this time. Comb your fucking hair, Vic.” They finished that sentence by tossing his "panties" back at him, which Max grabbed for numbly.

Max had the nerve to turn, look at them with a half-grin on his face. “The same goes to you, Captain.”

Neena dropped their hand into their hand, letting out a frustrated groan. “Why do I feel like I’ve made a huge fucking mistake?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I have your attention now. Yep, I added some tags in anticipation for this, I hope those lived up to expectations. ; )
> 
> I'm going to be honest; showing someone playing the backend is a little new for me, I hope I did it well! I am proud of what I did with this, and it was a relief to have Danypooh there to tell me that it reads nicely--and what didn't! You have her to thank for some parts that would have read real bad.
> 
> And there's no subtle way to segue into this, so we're just gonna go into it. The Corona Virus is proving to be a real danger, and although everyone at least seems to have heard of how to prevent the spread and treat it, I feel like I need to add my voice in there, for what it's worth. Might be worth little, because everyone seems to either know better and is doing the best they can or people are, I don't know, succumbing to an echo chamber or fear and are incapable of being reached. To be honest, this is likely not you, the person reading this, but it has been gravely disappointing to see peoples' behavior as of late. This might just be one more voice to add to the din, but take this satanist's advice for what it's worth. I know people who are immune deficient and EVERYONE knows someone who's elderly and/or immune deficient, so we should be careful for their sakes in the months to come.
> 
> For the good of everyone, at least this is relevant for Americans, THERE IS NO FOOD SHORTAGE AT THE MOMENT, SAVE FOR WHAT HOARDERS ARE CAUSING. PLEASE stop hoarding and going out needlessly in public! I wish there were a more subtle way to say it, but you need to stop taking everything off the damn shelf, it causes people to have to drive and travel more to find what they need to survive, further increasing the odds of spreading the virus and leading to a cycle of hoarding! Respect elder's hours, which my supermarket has just instituted today, and I wish it would also include people with immune deficiences or those at high risk, but at least respect the needs of those at the highest risk based on what we know at the moment. 
> 
> For your own health, I am astonished by how untouched produce and even frozen vegetables have been, which leads me to worry that everyone is living off of the fucking cans they panic bought. PLEASE eat some fresh produce if you can, and not just bananas, which seem to be the only fruit at least locally that has been touched. Your immune system needs healthy foods and you need to sleep, which... I KNOW is hard if you're frightened and stressed, but you have to try to take care of your mental and emotional health in this time, at least for your physical health. 
> 
> Take care of your mental and emotional health as well, which I know is hard at the moment, not just because of isolation, but also because of how frightened and uncertain we all are. Some people have to deal with FAR worse than even this, so keep them in mind and be more tolerant than you normally would be. The virus hitting all of our communities is not an if, it's a when, so be prepared if it hasn't come--yet--and try to keep your humanity and soul with you. I love all of you, and I think we can use this time to grow to truly love one another beyond the lines of things that once kept us seperated. Go for a walk in secluded nature if you can manage it to keep up your spirits, keep your distance as needed to prevent spread... you know the drill, but now is also a good time to learn how to exercize without a gym if you can and wish to. 
> 
> A strange message to leave at the end of an anal sex scene, but maybe it fits the mood of the era we live in. And maybe it'll lighten the levity and stop me from coming off as fully conceited and intolerably obnoxious. I hope?
> 
> Butt stuff, butt stuff, prostate orgasms and male virginity--let's sail some choppy seas together, shall we?
> 
> If you aren't utterly turned off of me (and even then, show your love for some dirty lovin') leave a kudos if you haven't already, as there's SO MUCH more to come, and in that spirit, subscribe so you want to know it's updating--it will keep being once a week, mondays, but this week was special. I couldn't wait to share this scene with you guys! 
> 
> Leave a comment, it being the era of social distance. Let's talk about sex, stories, and sexually insatiable Vicars. Or, hell, what games are you guys playing, planning on playing?
> 
> (Ugh, I KNOW I came off as annoying)
> 
> \---k.


	15. 14. Truly Dirty Star Gazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am the passenger;  
> I stay under glass.  
> I look through my window so bright,  
> I see the stars come out tonight.  
> I see the bright and hollow sky  
> over the city's ripped-back sky.  
> And everything looks good tonight...

They had made a mistake. Neena knew this; how doing something so careless with a co-worker meant that they would continue to deal with the man that they had fucked on a daily basis from now on. Even if they would do the right thing and put a stop to this relationship, there would always be the familiar warmth in Max’s eyes whenever he looked at them, that upward flick of his lips. And when it came to them, where once they had been eager to figure out how soon they would get the clothes off of their ex-Vicar, now Neena wondered how long they would need to cool down so they could look at Max without first thinking about the cute face he made when he was having an orgasm. 

So on the trip they had been planning to make on Groundbreaker to pick up their clothes, Neena decided that they could use a walk, alone, to cool their head, with their body officially in good enough condition to top an insatiably virile man. 

Neena slunk out of  _ The Unreliable _ , thinking about how bad of an idea it was to continue a relationship with a man who had a very distinct set of traits that proved to be irresistible.

The issue was that Neena started to remember that first night more the more they thought about it, usually when they were trying their best to  _ not _ remember it. Even waiting aimlessly had a chance of bringing back once-forgotten memories, jostled loose by the activity that they had shared.

* * *

After the de-frocked Vicar had experienced his first orgasm caused by another person, Neena had let him do what he had been dying to do; Max almost pulled the sweating but nearly fully clothed ship’s Captain to him, laughing, ravenously kissing Neena as he rolled on top of them. By the time Neena realized what had happened it seemed that he had taken the reigns,  _ him _ , a damn recently debased virgin.

Neena looked up at the smiling face of the man they thought they had taken some of the lust and frustration out of, realized that he was looking down at them with half-closed eyes that were filled with once seemingly uncharacteristic heat. 

Before they could ask the naked muscular man sitting between their legs what he was planning to do—to _ them _ —he tutted, said, “You poor thing. Look at you, you’re soaking wet.” Neena felt their face go a bright red, felt the nudge of something that was not the man’s hand or for that matter, knee, pressing against their crotch. “If I could ever do anything to help alleviate you of your agony, I would be more than willing to help…” And, before Neena could formulate a single thought, the wild-haired once holy man grabbed onto the waistband of their pants, then slipped his large hands along the lines of Neena’s suspenders, pulling loose of their shoulders.

It felt like Neena was surrounded by the smell of him, hot and wild sex as well as his sweat, which was clinging to their clothes. Yes, unless they wanted their clothes to smell like the bed, it would be  _ necessary _ to shed them. That’s what Neena might have told themselves if they needed any consolation for letting Max do what he wanted with his too willing friend.

He was softly humming, and if not for how he seemed to be rubbing his erect dick against Neena’s crotch in a maddening, softly nudging rhythm, they would have thought that this guy was as calm as though he was back in the ship, doing some chore or task. Not that he was taking the clothes off of his Captain.

But Neena could feel his lust, bearing down on them; a hungry match for their own, as though their minds were freely intermingling in a more sacred doubling of the sensuality of the acts that they had already committed.

And were sure to do.

Already lost to need, Neena just moved, letting the man do his new, strange duty of taking the offending clothes off of his friend turned lover, hands softly un-doing the buttons that ran up the center of their shirt. Today was a bra day, and Neena was wearing a minimizing bra, tucked beneath their undershirt.

They might have been imagining it, but as their covered chest came into view behind the weight off the overshirt, pulled finally loose of their shoulders, it seemed like Max stopped humming. And a more serious expression filled his eyes.

It made Neena shiver to see the look on his face. Even naked and in the aftermath of being ridden like a slut, how in the hell did the ex-Vicar look like he was such a potent force to be reckoned with? Yes, they could feel the rough, hard desire that filled him like blood, rendering what had been partially satiated and relaxed from his earlier orgasm back into a tension that Neena knew too well, drawn so taut in him he might as well have been wrapped in it.

Or, well, it was more like he was reckoning with  _ them _ . In their current state, Neena wasn't in any shape to do anything about it; perhaps some whispering voice of their conscience might have told them that letting him fuck them could have done do some real damage to the supposed line that separated their shared obvious sexual frustration. Still, the once devout pleasure seeker instead found themselves wondering what someone, long denied the pleasures of the flesh, would do to the first person they had a chance to fuck.

The scary thing should have been that Neena could feel  _ exactly _ what he wanted. And he could undoubtedly feel their own anticipation.

As his hands pulled their undershirt up, with the help of some maneuvering Neena was doing off of the sweat-soaked sheet, Neena nearly repeated what they had asked before. “What are you going to do to me?

As his hands slid past the revealed skin of Neena’s abdomen, Max looked up at her. The disconcerting smirk that etched its way across his mouth should have been far from enticing, a look shadowed with some of his tousled hair that had long since fallen across his face, but everything inside of Neena grew into a tight ball in the center of their abdomen and gave a hard spasm as they felt it answered in the connection they shared.

* * *

Neena found themselves in that room in the Groundbreaker, the one that the man who was taking far too much space in their head for safety or comfort had first shown them. Neena barely had time to feel astonished at the fact that they had just come to this door unerringly, as though guided here once more by the lulling sound of his comforting voice. 

Cursing, Neena turned, about to leave. Then they thought about how they felt, realized that this was the first time that they had a room, somewhere where they were alone, free even of ADA. And they could lock the door without wondering not if, but when someone might begin banging on the door.

The thought barely crossed their head before Neena was unbuttoning their pants, undoing the lock in the door. By the time they reached the long line of the soft-looking, upholstered bench that ran the edge of the huge window that made up the far side of the room, Neena was sliding their pants down their knees, followed by their under shorts. They were already wet, didn’t even need much in the way of exploring their body, arching back on the bench and with their thighs spread as far as the trap provided by the trousers that were wrapped around their boot-clad ankles would allow. Their only regret—they didn’t bring anything to play with, to speed or heighten their orgasm.

Neena varied with rubbing the part of their body that they swore took up half of their thoughts at any given time, plunged their fingers inside of themselves as they hungered for a filling, stretching completeness. Head full of a fresh memory that ought to of been a fantasy, of a very familiar man completely at their mercy, hips rolling in a needing rhythm to their penetration…

Neena had turned, was looking out at the stars to their right, at all of that darkness and the blinking light. Scylla was so very far away from here, the place where they had been with each other, had shared a more than mutual frustration. In their mind, however, Neena was back in that bed, surrounded by his smell, their fallen angel on top of them. Still wanting Neena, needing them completely, but now wanting to please them.

Neena almost pushed deeper into that memory— _ what are you going to do with me? _ —when they heard the door slide open.

They yelped, body stupid from being so deep into their lone session of sex, struggling too late to pull ther pants up in time to greet the person who had broken the lock. When Neena turned and saw the man standing in front of the door that he had closed behind himself, at first they were relieved that it was just him, not some stranger; or worse, anyone else who was a member of the crew aboard  _ The Unreliable. _

Then Neena saw the smug, once-familiar expression on the ship counselor’s face, and if there was any relief, they felt it devoured by an immediate feeling: that this wasn’t some accident. Somehow, they had fallen for a trap laid by a man who had lost his virginity this late in his life. Or, rather, like he did indeed know them so well that it was only going to be a matter of time before they found each other in here. More definitely—him finding them in here.

Hiking their pants up past their knees in a mad scramble to hide, Neena sat up, wrapping their arms over their sensitized body, face probably as bright a red as they were capable of. The only thing they could think to blurt out was, “Wait, what are you doing here?” A stupid question coming from someone who had been made stupid with lust and shock.

Max had been standing there with his hands behind his back, or else he had slipped them behind him as Neena was busy staring into his eyes; a strangely stoic and once familiar position. 

With an infuriating tilt of his head and a calmness in his voice, Max said, “Captain, if you’ll recall, I’m the person who first showed you this place.”

_ Captain.  _ Why did he have such a nasty habit of calling them by their stolen title when they were in the most compromised position or mental state?

Neena finished rucking the pants up their legs, cursing how their shorts wouldn’t slide back into place, hanging off of them awkwardly in their trousers as they tried to turn, stand off of the bench. “How did you even get in here, I locked—did—did you plan on me coming here, and you walking in like this—”

Max, now closing the distance between them as his Captain tried, unsuccessfully, to pull their pants up, laughed. “How did I first get in here? I know how to disengage a simple lock, who do you think you’re talking to? I was searching for you everywhere, then I thought to come in here.” He gave them a knowing look, even as his voice lowered in mock somberness. “I thought I would find our ship’s Captain in quiet contemplation and I  _ ached _ to join them in their quiet meditation among the stars.”

Their heavy desire once had stiff competition, up against their fear of what would happen if they became accustomed to daily sex with a member of their  _ fucking _ crew. Now that thought was becoming muffled, with each moment that passed.

Neena had managed to sit up, throwing their legs over the edge, hand awkwardly fishing beneath the waist of their trousers, trying to re-adjust their shorts that had become bunched. Struggling to get a handle on their broken voice, they said, “Well, you can just leave me so I can get more of that quiet, alone time for myself—”

He finished walking the rest of the distance to them when Max crouched down, irresistible eyes gazing, examining their own. “I wanted to get that shipment of clothes with you, thought it would be fitting. But would you appreciate some help, first?”

Neena blinked at him, too shocked at the way this relationship had turned into something beyond weird, even by their standards. “‘cuse me?”

Max’s smirk reappeared and he sank in closer, until Neena felt dizzy from the clean smell that came off of him. “You once told me that a good friend always offers... a helping hand.”

Neena couldn’t fight the whimper that rose in the back of their voice. What the fuck, when was the last time, possibly ever, that someone had pinned them just from their overwhelming presence? “Yeah, but I said that to tease you at the time. I think—” They had to struggle to think, to remember another one of those arguments or teasing they had had with the man who was now almost looming over them. “you were telling me to not help Ellie with something, or it could have been… Nyoka.” Their breath died in their throat as they could feel Max’s intention, as if he were about to go in for some kind of a kill.

The ex-Vicar reached forward, hand resting in an almost chaste gesture on Neena’s shoulder. “What a difference a simple change in context makes. I’m having the good taste to not play semantics, because you look like…" His voice dropped, maddeningly soft and intimate. "you’re in agony.” He leaned in closer, so close his nose was about to rub against Neena’s. “I happen to know what it’s like to be frustrated. And I’m here to exonerate you.” Max was one of the few people in the Halcyon section who practiced not just good, but faithful oral hygiene. It meant that his breath, which wafted over their mouth, smelled, and Neena could almost taste, like sweet sharp mint. Thank fuck for Auntie Cleo’s Sweet Mint Oral Cleanser. And, hell, thank the fucking stars that the rightful, deceased Captain Hawthorne had had a good hoard of the stuff and head kept it in the supply closet.

But in that moment, the thought of companies—products, and even the man they had killed within minutes of awakening in the Halcyon system—could not have been further from their mind. 

Max’s eyes were looking at them, asking a question, of if they wanted to keep going, let him do exactly what he was telling them he would do to them. 

Neena leaned forward, kissing him, trying still to wrap their head around the truth; how they had been in his head, experienced his emotions, and that now they were moments from breaking their own far too long period of chastity. But it all felt hazy, less than real, with all that Neena felt like they knew for sure was that Max smelled and tasted like something wonderfully familiar while simultaneously forbidden. A strikingly clean, profane thing. 

Neena ended up laying back on the bench with a strong man on top of them, once upon a time in and of itself not an unusual predicament for someone like them, but the context of who it was, and this time with him purely as an aggressor, left the person who had, just the night before, fucked his ass a freshly shivering mess.

And that was before he reached between them, sliding a hand down the front of Neena’s still opened trousers, as if it were the most natural thing for him to do. 

Neena gasped, jerking at the first touch of his fingers sliding against skin and hair. Looking at the man, they fought to formulate anything they could say, let alone think, failing as they let out a soft whimper.

Max grinned at them, his fingers tickling, within aching closeness to Neena’s vulva. “My, you’ve groomed since the first time. Of course, it’s all a matter of preference; I didn’t care the first time, in fact, after a while, your scent just got trapped in it and it felt like I was breathing in a pheromone cocktail.”

Neena almost leaped away from him, more shocked by the filth that was coming out of his mouth, spoken with the smoothness and sensitivity of a man used to articulating metaphysical manners in the same voice and cadence. 

It made them moan.

Max cocked an expectant eyebrow toward them, almost managing to look as calm and collected as if he were indeed just talking to them about whatever it was that was bothering them. Not as if he were the source of all of Neena’s emotional turmoil. “While I would love to take your delicious moaning as an answer, I would be much appreciative to hear you say that you want me to touch you beyond even this. After all, you made me do the same thing.”

This time Neena lurched, frustration making them want to push that hand onto them. When it didn’t work, Neena let out a choked, helpless sound and said, “Yes, goddamn it, if you want to play petting zoo, we can do it any time you want.”

Max slipped his hand higher, fingers running past the neatened circle of hair, rough skin rasping as it ran lower, touched Neena’s lips. “You mean it. _ Any time _ I want?” As he slipped his fingers in an exploratory circle, one of the rough pads of his fingers slid over the tip of their sensitized clit, causing a shockwave of painful pleasure to burn through Neena. “Might want to reconsider that. I have a lot of time to make up for in the practice of my new belief system.”

_ Fuck _ . “Could give me a break.” They almost panted. “You know you don’t have to limit yourself to one  _ test subject _ , DeSoto.”

Max kept teasing with his hand, the circles he drew his hand into getting smaller, more deliberate across slick flesh and tenderized sex organs. “When we’re sharing fluids, I think it’s appropriate to call me Max. Or Maximillion if you’re in a mood for decadent slowness. And oh, don’t you worry about me growing bored. I plan on taking my time with you. Show you that you’re not the only devious mind on the ship.”

As he drew his fingers closer, now in a tight halo around their clit, Neena bit out, “I mean—I’m not the only option available to you. It wouldn’t be hard to find someone else to—” What Neena was about to say was broken off when Max bent forward and kissed them roughly, tongue thrusting into their mouth. He tasted of sweet mint and deliciously of his own flavor. Bitter but with an indescribable sweetness, like the kind of coffee that only the Byzantium lordlings got to drink in this system.

When he released their mouth, Neena was surprised to see the serious, darkening expression in Max’s eyes as he fought to catch a breath. “I’ve already told you, as long as we’re together like this, I would appreciate it if we kept our exploration to each other, as I find myself in the curious predicament of wanting to try this with the only person I’ve met who remotely interests me in the least, conversationally and sensually.”

Neena bit their lip, the feeling of being chastised and what felt a lot like being called, in a roundabout way, the sole object of his burgeoning desires, leaving them aching with want. Made them wish for something they thought they never wanted. “What do you think’s gonna happen between us if we keep this up, Max? I’m gonna end up hurting you—”

He surprised Neena by gripping gently onto either side of their hips, dropping them backward with their legs propped up against his chest. With a soft grunt, Max pushed against Neena’s legs and said, “You give yourself too much credit. You’re as sweet as they come, really, and I know your dirty little secret.” Before Neena could demand he tell them what he was ranting about, Max answered as he yanked Neena’s trousers off their thighs, trapped at their ankles, his voice losing some of his earlier coolness. “You have a pretty big soft spot for the old, bitter guy you picked up out of a Saltuna factory town.” He panted as he began to work their boots off, formidable jaw set in frustration as he tried to rip Neena’s clothes off. “Some would say you’d even be amenable to doing this with me for a while. A  _ long _ while, hopefully.”

Neena had been helping him, ripping their other boot off, having to bite back a whimper as they could almost imagine the feel of Max’s gaze on their revealed body like he was touching them. Almost as a challenge, Neena said, “Yeah, sure, next you’ll say you want to be my  _ boyfriend. _ ” The Captain didn’t suppress the snort that rose out of them.

At first Max was quiet, and Neena thought he hadn’t heard them or he wasn’t going to react. Then he worked their trousers off, turned and looked Neena in the eyes, as he said, “That’s the point.”

Neena jerked, felt their face growing red. “Good joke,  _ Maximillion _ .”

Max tossed the trousers away and stared Neena down before he slowly said, “I am not playing some game, I am far too long and impatient for it. I would  _ love  _ to keep doing this with you, but I would enjoy it even more if we could try different things as well. Like not hiding this indefinitely from our friends, there’s one.”

Neena felt a nervous chuckle come out of their throat. “H-hiding? Who’s hiding anything?”

Max cocked one of those uneven eyebrows towards them, lips setting into a smirk. “What’s the matter, afraid of a new experience? Maybe that you’ll like such a  _ vanilla _ thing too much?”

That made them think of the ice cream cones they had shared so soon after kissing. And then the kisses that followed, desperate, hungry things that tasted of artisanal vanilla and lemon poppy waffle. 

Neena glared at him and snarled, “No, just tired of old cliches like love and boyfriends.” Neena stared at him meaningfully before they added, “Or  _ courting. _ ”

That smirk on his face bordered on patronizing. “Hard to ignore a “cliche” when it feels more like a normal thing, like, well,” he nodded meaningfully at them. “sex. Take it from someone who spent most of their life, running from normal human experience; it’s pointless to try to deny what’s in your heart. Whether it’s wild or… mild.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

Max paused, his eyes feeling like they were staring meaningfully at them. “You want to keep trying to act like this is just about sex, then we’ll just keep doing this, until one of us breaks from the stress of trying to keep up the act. Besides, even  _ I’m _ tired of talking.” He took in a deep breath, mouth softly falling open a moment before he shocked Neena by pulling their legs apart and, bending over, he began to kiss their belly.

As Neena squirmed, realizing that the ex-Vicar’s face wasn’t as smooth cut as he had first looked when the sharp feel of his scruff rubbed on them, they said, helplessly, “Come on, you can’t want to go out with me. Doesn’t that feel like something a  _ school kid _ does, want to go steady with their  _ crush _ ?”

They could almost feel his eyes on them as Max paused his kissing to say, “I wouldn’t know too much about the experiences of a school kid, I was barely homeschooled and had to teach myself much of what I wanted to learn. I also didn’t mention the fact that you have a crush on me,  _ Captain Castillo _ . But what’s wrong with a little bit of innocence? I mean,” Neena felt a soft, probing touch of his fingers on their thighs, nudging their legs to spread further apart for exploration. “mixed in with less chaste fun. Why devote yourself to only one kind of pleasure at the expense of the other?”

As the man slipped the tips of his fingers between their slickened lips, Neena found that it was hard to articulate their misgivings; they were starting to feel swayed by the thought of what they would have normally said was a bad joke for someone like them. Romance, courting? 

Just who  _ was _ this guy?

Max kissed his way down their body, taking his time as he went further down, fingers lazily spreading them and slipping against over-tender flesh. As he planted a strangely sweet kiss on the patch of fur that Neena had left above the portion of their body that he was tormenting, he said, “For someone who seems so dead set against the thought of a simple date, you seem awfully obsessed with it. But, let’s focus on something else for the moment.” He took in a deep, huffing breath, then released it, spreading a moist heat on exposed, wet skin. “I’ve been doing some research, reading about the techniques of the masters.” There was no time to think about this shocking revelation; about what all of his research into  _ massage  _ had led to, as he continued speaking. “I do hope you’ll be patient with me, I believe this is an improvement over my first foray, which, I must admit, I must have spent fumbling my way through…” he stopped and shook his head, as if dislodging a thought that had become trapped. “Sorry, I’m more than a little distracted.” He withdrew his fingers that he had been teasing them with and before Neena could realize what he was about to do, Max popped them into his mouth, eyes fluttering shut in pleasure. He moaned softly around his fingers and when his eyes opened, he said, in a husked voice, “I missed that taste. I think you understand.”

Indeed they did. The complete understanding that this man had of them, and the sincere desire he had, left Neena weak. They had always thought that the joys of dirty, anonymous or near stranger sex had always been the most decadent of joys they knew. Somehow, being this exposed by someone they had no business being with left them more turned on than they had ever been in their life.

At that moment, he could have told Neena that the payment for him to keep talking to them like this was to agree to be his fucking slave and Neena might have agreed to it, eagerly.

Max cocked his head and stared at them as if in confusion. “Do you want me to… keep going?”

Neena dropped their head back, let out a frustrated groan as every bit of blood inside of them pooled low in their abdomen. “Fuck you, Max.”

“I’m going to ignore the rudeness and instead appreciate the explicit request in that statement.” 

The feel of Max returning his hand from where he had removed it took from Neena any desire they had to argue with him. For once they just let the insufferable man win an argument without a fight. Looking down, they saw the moment he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the top of their pussy, followed with him slipping his fingers into them and opening his mouth to kiss Neena’s clit with his tongue.

He must have been inside of Neena’s head before, because the teasing, lush movements of his insistent but at first gentle, beckoning fingers and his tongue and lips felt like they belonged to someone that Neena had programmed to pleasure them. 

Neena whimpered, thrusting against his face. Face fucking their ex-ship Vicar with abandon.

He started to spread them further with his fingers, probing and reaching in deep as he hungrily ate and slurped up their pussy like he was an expert. None of that uncertainty, or even worse, some of the attitude of this being an expected act of reciprocity that went along with Neena giving head like they had seen in other men before. Max was more than a natural; he was a consummate glutton.

Neena fought the urge, but eventually the instinct to grab onto the back of his head and ride his face won out as Neena grabbed two handfuls of his soft, once immaculate hair and shoved their pussy into his face, impaling three of his fingers to the knuckle.

It was too much; one denied orgasm earlier alone couldn’t win out against the promise of a fresh one administered orally from the mouth and hands of a filthy-minded scholar. Neena humped Max’s face as the feeling ripped through them, so strong and sudden they didn’t have time to give out a warning of courtesy.

As Neena came down in shuddering steps, they looked down, saw the man looking up at them with too bright eyes. His face proof that he had remained in the splash zone. 

Neena winced. They loved getting splattered in the aftereffects of a lover’s orgasm, but they couldn’t remember if it was Max’s “yummy”. But, as they winced and started to apologize, they saw a rapturous look come over the man’s face, making Neena’s pussy clench so soon in anticipation for a fresh journey into heaven. 

Max reached a hand up, running it against one of his cheeks, closing his eyes as if he were savoring the moment, mouth hanging open as he ran his tongue over both of his lips before he said, “It’s no understatement to say I miss  _ that _ .”

Neena felt a weird laugh bubble out of them, half relief and half unable to come to terms with their new reality, of having a fuck partner as strange as this one was. “You develop a taste for, uh,  _ that _ ?”

He looked almost too serious for a moment before Max’s face broke with a grin. “I acquired the taste from the best.” And before Neena could even make the lewd request, hoping that it would manage to shock him where nothing so far seemed to, Max slithered up Neena’s body and clutched the back of their head, kissing them, spreading and sharing the bright and briny taste. When he pulled away, Neena could only dumbly hang their tongue out of their mouth as he grinned, said, “Glad to see you haven’t changed a bit. I haven’t. I’ve only gotten  _ worse.” _

This time Neena found the strength to take the reins back with a quick movement, grazing their hand against the telltale tenting in his trousers. It was worth it, beyond getting to feel the shape of his straining dick. Max let out a choked cry, thankfully unable to string a sentence together.

“Oh, love, no one’s as bad as me. I wasn’t made this bad, I was born this way.”

“Fuck.”   


Neena looked up into his eyes, loving the wild, helpless expression they saw in him. “So, how about you tell me how badly you want me to suck your dick?”

Max seemed to be struggling with keeping his eyes open. He must have been in agony; Neena knew from experience, going down on, well, a vulva, an ass, or, yes, a penis, that it took an effort to not want to furiously massage their clit the whole time they were subjecting the other person to oral pleasure. He looked like he might explode.

_ Well, that could either be a plus, or _ —

Max let out a helpless moan and it was almost more than enough for Neena to not wait for him to beg them. Neena’s mouth was already waiting to “reciprocate”, hands itching to fill with the shape they could remember from the night before, his smell, his taste—

Thankfully, Max spoke, his voice a broken near sob as he said, “I think I’ll die if you don’t…” he stopped, as if he was re-thinking it, then as Neena groped the shape of his penis he let out a guttural grunt and spat out, “Suck my dick, please, before I get a brain bubble.”

Neena didn’t have the mental energy for a joke, they just ran their hand to the bindings of his trousers and got their turn at unwrapping their favorite type of present.

Undoing the button holding him imprisoned and re-adjusting the ex-Vicar’s briefs, Neena slipped Max’s pants down his thighs and welcomed his dick into their mouth. 

He tasted as good as Neena could remember, not only from the night before, along with the rich and forbidding taste of his cum, but also from their freshly returned memory of how it had been to suck Max off that first night on Scylla. 

In fact, he tasted so good that Neena let out a helpless moan around the weight of Max in their mouth, their own hand groping instinctively at their own chest, running their hand over their clothed but sensitized nipples.

Max himself was far from stoic. Half sitting on the bench on his knee, he thrust in helpless, shallow movements, breathing out of his mouth. As Neena managed to swallow most of him, he choked out, “Watching you do that to me is... maddening.” 

Neena slid off of him, popping him out of their mouth, loving the wobbly way Max’s lush penis bobbed, glistened in spit. “Why’s that?” Neena looked up at him, remembering how much they had loved to do this with him the first time, with no small amount of joy that they had to suppress from showing on their face. 

Max sucked in his bottom lip, looking more helpless than the time Neena had fucked his ass. “Why’d you stop?”

Neena stared at him, hoping that the look on their face was guileless. “I was just afraid I was  _ hurting  _ you, love.”   


He really did get a kick out of Neena calling him that.  _ Love _ . Could see it, raw, in his sweet eyes as he almost looked like he worshipped them, his face all pink and red from every impure thing Neena could imagine. 

“You can’t hurt me. Making me feel good could never hurt.” 

A strange feeling came over Neena—a return of that damned uncharacteristic conscience, no doubt—and they felt themselves saying, “I don’t know, you’re pretty new at this, you don’t know that even something good can hurt if you’re too sensitive.”

Max rolled his eyes and gave a frustrated grunt, thrusting until he was pressing against their mouth, rubbing against their cheek. “That’s _ very _ admirable of you to try to warn me of what-the-hell ever, but I feel like I’m going to explode.”

Neena forgot their attack of conscience—truly an attack, to get in the middle of a deep-seated fantasy that Neena had harbored for too long, unfulfilled for this man—and they returned to sucking Max’s dick.

He fit more than well in Neena’s mouth, on the large enough size so it was a joy to try to take all of him but also more than enough to take half of him and get a good grip on the base and massage the rest of him in their hand. Oh, and he tasted spicy, sweet, deliciously real and human. A complete contrast to the stoic asshole that he had either been, or perhaps had been playing too hard at.

As was often the case for Neena, once they gave themselves to the experience it seemed to end too quickly. With a moan, Neena looked up and saw that Max had thrown his head back and said, “Oh fuck, I’m going, I’m going,  _ Neena _ …”

And it was a good thing that Neena was ready for the inevitable, because they felt him buck, then he came in their mouth. The whole time, in spite of the too recent orgasm they had experience, they had been playing with themselves, lazily, with no real goal of a follow up cum, just enjoying the sea of sensation they were in.

After Max had finished, he slumped back, looking like he was about to fall down. It really was an appealing sight, to see him helpless, compromised. And the slow, creeping smile that started to grow on his face felt like the look on a co-conspirator’s face after they had both done something wicked. It made him look like a kid twenty years younger than he was.

And it made something very disturbing occur to Neena.  _ Holy shit, I think I'm falling for the guy I picked up off of Edgewater. _

And then they wanted to hit him when he rubbed his face and said, "Anyone ever tell you how spectacular you look with their cum on your face?" Then he stopped, the mock-serious tone of his voice breaking as he started to laugh. 

Neena got up and, with no hesitation, swabbed the residue on his cheek, delighting as he let out a yell and ducked, too late, wrapping his arms around his head. "Remember who was the stuck up virgin, you  _ smartass _ !"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how's your week prior been? 
> 
> Around here, thankfully, they've been able to keep up with the panic shopping (thank you, paranoid crackpots, for the unnecessary shortages; a small town we've heard about is utterly decimated due to the ignorance of the people who refuse to quarantine as well as due to people who panic shop). I am working on evaluating and making decisions based on the feedback I've gotten on my original manuscript at the moment, it is not easy to corral the engagement data as well as the feedback of two different versions that have been posted for years into each scene. 
> 
> I also had the chance to attend the virtual screenwriting summit, hosted by Screencraft. While I was more inspired than anything, I recommend anyone interested in writing even tangentially to check out the recordings of Sunday's event now that it costs nothing to do so. You can actually hear Adam Kolbrenner name drop me when I complimented *Prisoners* as a damn fine piece of cinema, which is fun. Unrelated to that, I believe Adam was the best speaker, but I am biased as being primarily a novelist and not a screenplay writer. JJ Abrams showed up as the surprise guest second to last, if that's your yummy. If you'd like to know, I only wished I could sniff his hair once in chat.
> 
> https://www.crowdcast.io/e/screencraft-virtual-summit/1?utm_source=crowdcast&utm_medium=browser-push&utm_campaign=followers
> 
> Thanks as always for the advice and feedback, Danypooh!
> 
> (Lyrics in chapter summary is from "Passenger" by Iggy Pop)


	16. 15. In-Depth Counseling: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If they're being pursued, why does it feels like Neena is the one who is centering their sights on their pursuer?

As they strode through Groundbreaker, Neena found themselves in the unlikely situation of having to tell the man walking next to them, "We really have to slow down."

Since they had left the observation room it was as if nothing had changed that had occurred in there. Infuriatingly, Max looked out in public like this as though he was nothing more than a well-mannered gentleman, not some ravenous slut, or rather, a tease for a ravenous slut. 

Except for that damning bright quality that his eyes had.

He revealed that devilish and wicked look in his eyes for a moment before Max had turned away, clearing his throat. “Ah, I was wondering when you’d be the one to ask if we can slow it down a bit.” He smirked, the look almost managing, in spite of the context, to feel innocuous. “Who would have thought it; the person who used to tease  _ me _ about being frightened of intimacy.”

Neena’s face burned in embarrassment. “I never used to—” they stuttered, then stopped, having to suppress the need to shout as they demanded, “don’t talk like you know me, inside and out like that.”

He answered too quickly, his voice infuriatingly calm. “But I  _ do _ . That’s the rub here, Neena. I _ know _ you, and it sounds like you’re starting to know me better. No more hiding or pretending. No matter what you say to the contrary.”

Somewhere, a robotic voice chirped out, “Having a problem with your current debt solution? We’re here to help; message Dirk Hammer today and learn how you could refinance! The Hammer: Here to Nail Your Finances in Place!”, which was followed by an obnoxious chime.

They stopped walking, were about to just stalk over to the damned Lost Hope and deal with their emotions with a really just ludicrous amount of alcohol. After all, Neena didn’t  _ need _ this. Let alone in some place as ludicrous as the Halcyon system, when they had started to find a new life for themselves already. Didn’t need someone in their life, a man who wanted something from them that would just end up hurting the both of them. 

Then they felt his hand on their shoulder, not grabbing or really even much of a weight. A presence. 

Turning to look at him, they were almost taken aback by the previously unseen softness in his face when Max looked at them. It felt like they were being drawn into him, and some part of Neena was truly afraid of what would happen if they did let themselves be pulled into Max, discovered that one of them could never let go.

Ducking his head closer and talking in a softer voice, Max asked, “Is the thought of letting control go for even a second on your own emotions so terrifying?” He brought his hands down, was winding his fingers loosely with theirs. “You’ve been inside me. You know I wouldn’t hurt you. It doesn’t matter what happens to us, if you took a chance with me I wouldn’t do a thing that would harm you—”

Neena pulled their fingers loose and finally let their frustration show through their mask of calm, of control. “You idiot, I’m not worried that you’ll hurt  _ me. _ ” Before he could say something else, something that the Captain was afraid would break their resolve, Neena stalked away, back to the Fence’s room.

By the time they reached the hotel, it seemed that Max had hid his earlier dismay behind a neutral expression. 

Inside, Gladys greeted the two warmly, rising out from behind her desk to hand the large package to Neena while one of her “boys” handed Max his own. To Neena’s dismay, both packages were the same size: large. In spite of the fact that Neena had told themselves that they wouldn’t care or worry about what the cost came out on these, their heart sank as they envisioned what the price tag would be.

As Gladys walked back behind her desk and gave her price to them, Neena was, however, relieved. It wasn’t cheap, but that was something they had to take for granted; custom work, especially in a place where everyone who was in their field of work just pulled their  _ new _ outfits off of the corpses of the stupid or unlucky, did not come cheap. But it did seem like Gladys had cut the price down.

Neena wondered if there was a chance that the Fence of Groundbreaker was developing a soft spot for them, and that question was answered when the woman winked as Neena stared at her in surprise at the apparent drop in the price. And as if to explain her reasoning, Gladys looked over at Max. The man was talking to David, who had come down to say good-bye to the man whom he had made a new wardrobe for.

Neena had to bury the connotation in that one look by grabbing their large package up and muttering a heartfelt but nevertheless pained, “Thanks, granny."

As they were walking back, Max asked his Captain, “Would you like to see what I picked out?”

Neena turned away, pretending to find something, any aspect of Groundbreaker that wasn’t already long since committed to memory from far too much time spent in the station. “I’m sure I’ll see it plenty, thanks.” There was no chance to think about the accidental connotation of what they had said.   


When they had a chance to glance over at their companion, Neena wondered if they had gone too far, or if they were just imagining the hurt on his face, even buried behind his usual mask of calm.

* * *

The day after that, it was as if Neena was meant to be tormented. A tossball match was organized on Monarch, with three of the crew members thrown into one of the teams. Two of whom actually knew enough about the game to take it fairly seriously. Parvati wanted to be a part of the fun, even if she was as lost in the proceedings as Neena imagined they would be in the same situation, but the woman almost made up for it with her sheer enthusiasm. There was no way in hell Neena was going to participate in anything physical that wasn’t fighting or, well, the other f in their life that had grown to take up so much space in their head as of late. So the plan was Zero Gee and shitty snack foods in the bleachers with the other two human members of the crew.

They played in an enclosed stadium, thankfully away from most of the smell the wind would have otherwise carried in, the center field almost lit like a spotlight in the early noon sun. There were bleachers sat up on all four corners, with the turnout understandably low enough so that everyone stuck to one side in a group of spectators who could not have been more than twenty, counting the human crew members of  _ The Unreliable  _ who were not participating. The feeling was that, aside from occasional organized matches, this place never really saw a crowd; or a game, for that matter, an observation not helped by the fact that one of the sides of bleachers had collapsed and nobody had bothered to repair it.

The match started with everyone raising their tossball sticks—none of which were allowed to be, thankfully, enhanced with electricity—and everyone reciting some pre-game chant that all but poor Parvati seemed to know from heart.

As it started, Nyoka, sitting at Neena’s left, croaked out, “Crazies, who the fuck wants to run when you’re not being chased by nothin’?”

Neena looked at their half-sober crewmember, grinning. “You and me both, sis.”

At Neena’s right sat Ellie, who rose a leg up and half-hugged it as she took in the sight of the chaos spread out before them on the field. “I knew a thing or two about… all of this… once upon a time. Yeesh, at all worried that anyone from the ship’s gonna get dinged up? ‘cause, it’ll be  _ me _ that has to patch the dumbasses up.”

But soon enough the three non-participating members of the crew sank into the mood of the match, watching as the game started. As they watched their first genuine tossball match, Neena saw how it was like an amalgamation of European football, rugby, and lacrosse—and enough of a bewildering mess thereof at first to be enough of a distraction to not stare at one player in particular. They jeered, cheered, and hollered in tune to every perceived bad call, miss, and success, even Nyoka getting into it with surprising fervor.

But the overwhelming sense of befuddlement at what was happening and the excitement only just managed to keep them from staring at the one man who Neena had been trying to ignore until he, along with Felix, took his shirt off as the match wore on for over ten minutes and the energy and heat undoubtedly got to be uncomfortable. 

The sight of Max yanking his shirt off and jumping back into the crazed fray almost made Neena do a double take. It was complete chaos, with people wielding tossball sticks and crying out bizarre terminology to each other, but all the Captain could do was lock eyes onto the sweat-sheened torso of the larger of the two men that were there to represent  _ The Unreliable. _

Max looked too fucking good, galloping after the ball, dodging and sweeping past his foes. He used his stick liberally, but it seemed, to a complete novice to the sport, as if he used the tool and defensive weapon it provided with surprising accuracy, making his foes flinch and back up moments before they ever had a chance to descend on him. When he did attack, he did it with surprising mercilessness, making a point to most everyone whom he swung his stick at. He looked less like a man past his forties who had spent much of his life behind a desk and more like a broad-shouldered, tan-skinned automaton. He also seemed to make it a priority to defend the other two members of the crew specifically, almost seeming to magically appear whenever Parvati or Felix bit off more than they could chew, as if he had studied this game so well that he knew what the opposing team was going to do before they did. 

A show, Neena imagined, of a long-practiced and well-seasoned expert. Even watching him deliberately create an opening and help Parvati make a good strike was astonishing, like he wielded the chaos of the many players with the ease of a chess player.

Neena hardly realized that they had spent—wasted—almost the rest of the informal match eye-fucking a shirtless adonis, until a voice from their right side almost made them jolt in their seat. 

“Pertinent question: you hitting that?”

Neena felt a grin stretch, far too wide, on their mouth. “Like, what? With a hammer?”

Nyoka chuckled but Ellie continued, unphased by the joke. “For the record, if you did: good fucking catch. Gives a whole knew meaning to “dad bod”.”

Neena scoffed, not daring to turn to look at their ship’s sawbones. Felt sure that their face would grow redder by the minute as it was.

By the time the match had ended, and Neena could not have told anyone who the winner was to save their life, the players all bowed formally to the audience, raising their sticks up in unison before they belted out a loud cry, which the audience returned.

A well-fought but friendly battle ended, Max, other hand clenched tight in Felix’s, grinned broadly, sweat plastering his hair to his head, looked happier in that moment than he had ever seemed in the whole time Neena had known him.

And the thought that was bright and oppressive in their head was:  _ Christ, how yummy does the musk coming off his chest smell? _

* * *

It was nice, to live, while in a state of uncertain anxiety of what they were going to do when eventually they would have to deal with the relationship they had helped to create with their ship’s ex-Vicar, without having to feel guilty or utterly conflicted. Of course that wasn’t going to last forever, even in a situation where every day seemed to offer up a new distraction.

It was after dinner, and everyone was off doing who knew what, leaving Neena in the kitchen to work through a rare but occasional turn at dish duty. The humans aboard had to take turns, in lieu of their so-called cleaning automechanical proving to not be fit for the delicate and necessary work of scraping dried food off of their plates and spoons. And a dishwasher did not seem to be at the top of the deceased Captain Hawthorne’s list of desired amenities in his smuggling vessel.

And it was a chore that, as always, seemed to take longer than Neena would have liked. The dishes in  _ The Unreliable  _ had a habit of being used up before the person whose turn it rightfully was to clean them would do them. Doubly so if it fell on either Nyoka or Ellie.

So with some less offensively irritating piece of what Halcyon called music playing from the speaker over the sink, Neena tried to get through the dull work without being bored. Or thinking too much of the last time they had been on Groundbreaker. Or, for that matter, of the sight of the sweat-glistened torso of their ship’s ex-Vicar.

They heard someone walk in, but Neena had expected that it would be someone who needed to use the bathroom and would soon leave them alone to their annoying work. When they heard the chair scraping away from the table, Neena almost turned around to ask whoever it was what they were doing out here. Then he spoke.

“Have you ever given much thought to how unlikely it is that either of us—any of us—are in the situation we currently find ourselves in?”

Neena almost flinched. Since that day spent on Groundbreaker, they had been giving each other space. Or, fairly, Max had been giving Neena space. No matter what this time spent acting like nothing was happening meant, when it seemed that their truce/ceasefire had finally ended, Neena didn’t know if they actually felt tense. Or relieved.

Pretending to sound dispassionate, Neena said, as they wiped out the interior of a glass with their soapy rag-encased hand, “You used to have a lot to say about that.”

He sounded, as always, so damned calm. “I did, didn’t I? Thought I knew everything, Now I can finally just enjoy the experience of feeling wonder at the world of possibility at what does manage to happen, in spite of some supposed odds being stacked against it.”

Something twitched to life inside in Neena. A thing that they had been trying to suppress for days at that point, had foolishly perhaps thought that they had succeeded in destroying. “Yup, chance, chaos, all of that. Tell me Max, what’s your fucking point?”

They had expected that it would make him retreat, as biting him once used to do, maybe apologize and go back to whatever machinations he was planning. Anything, as long as it gave Neena the space to breathe. Instead the sound of the scraping of his chair was followed by the sound of his encroaching footsteps, and Neena felt him behind them.

It would seem that this new Max operated under a different set of operating rules than the old one.

Their heart pounded in their ears as images filled their head, truly unfortunate ones, of Neena bent over the counter and this supposedly cold man penetrating them mercilessly bareback, right where anyone could find them.

And Neena wouldn’t have even wanted to stop him, if he did.

He felt warm as he was almost pressed to them, too close for comfort. Max leaned forward, a hand resting on Neena’s hip, his mouth hovering over Neena’s neck and ear. “This taking it slow thing is wearing down on me overmuch. I think it’s safe to say it’s been three days since we last fooled around.”

That was a good term for it. After all, this ship's Captain must have been a fool to let continue. But, Neena was already entwining their fingers with the ones belonging to the hand that was resting on their hip. An action that some part of themselves recognized as intimate; possessive, even. “What did you have in mind?”

He didn’t even hesitate. Bearing closer to them, Max whispered, “A good, long counseling session, before we have to go running around some damn raider base. Clear our heads.”

Neena felt a pained chuckle coming out of their throat. “More like clear your balls.” Still, they almost fell back against his larger frame, ass pressing and rubbing across his hips and crotch.

Max’s hand had risen, was playing with one of the buttons of the new, surprisingly beautifully androgynous shirt that Neena had gotten from Gladys. He was softly bouncing his hips against the curves of Neena’s ass and the small of their back, well acquainted with a new sort of body language. “Well, if you want to be  _ indelicate _ about it, sure.”

How in the hell did he manage to make the dirtiest acts and promises feel so sophisticated? But, more importantly, what would Neena have done to stop him, how would they have even been able to, if he stripped them there in the kitchen?

_ Fuck, fuck, fuck _ —

Neena grabbed onto his hand, wished that the trembling that filled them, the eager shaking of an addict so close to getting their fix, wasn’t there when they pulled his hand away. “Alright, before I change my mind.”

Neena couldn’t turn to look at him, afraid that one look in those deep-set green eyes would make them melt into the ground. They lead the way, bodies, unfortunately, painfully separated as they walked down the hall, continuing an illusion of separation for the benefit of everyone else but ADA. Neena meant to walk them into their room, then Max softly said, “Let’s have our counseling in my room. I have… a collection of tools we could utilize.” 

The way he said it, keeping the description of the exact reason he wanted them to use his room vague but technically honest for the benefit of anyone in the other rooms who might hear them, left Neena aching. He was a man whose voice and vocabulary were as much a turn on as his body, as his sexual appetites that matched their own. 

As they entered his room, Neena immediately asked ADA, “Is this room soundproofed as well?”

The ship’s A.I responded, “All of the rooms have the same level of soundproofing, especially given what you’re planning to do.”

Neena threw their head back, groaning. “Could you  _ stop _ it with that, ADA?” Finally turning to look back at the man who was giving Neena a serious, downright thunderous look as he stood in front of the door, Neena ordered, “Lock this door, make sure we aren’t interrupted. I mean it this time.”

As ADA confirmed the order, Max’s face broke into another one of those dark grins. 

In his new casual clothes Max looked amazing. Everything he wore now fit, not only his once noted  _ broad shoulders,  _ but also his personality. Today he wore a simple-looking but very well-fitting button-up short sleeve shirt with a strangely beautiful pattern on it, a softer blue in color than he certainly used to wear.

And hell, it was a relief to see him out of those vestments, even his trousers. The ones he was wearing were a perfect hug on his hips and ass, showed his great legs off with a loving detail to the subtle lines of his body's definition. 

The whole look was, admittedly, a better style on him than that blue-purple, like he was some Rizzo mascot. His current look wasn't hiding his age but it did a wonder towards making him look warm and approachable. And when he wore the grey wayfarer sunglasses that David had included outside, sometimes Neena had to shake their head to get rid of the impression of an aetherwave star on a stroll. Or that he was too pretty to be in any kind of a relationship with them.

And he had been, as usual, keeping up with his hair. Perfectly cropped, pushed back and impeccably groomed, he certainly looked like his intention was to do something that had nothing to do with counseling a friend. And if that wasn’t clear, the bright quality of his eyes pushed the point home. 

Neena’s hair, meanwhile, was a mess; tied behind their head, probably more than likely in need of a wash, as did the rest of them. They liked to wear the clothes they had found and pieced together themselves while they were dicking around on the ship, and they were currently wearing their oversized dress shirt tucked into their thankfully decently fitting trousers. As had become habit, they were also wearing their breast bindings. 

They had been spending the day on the ship talking with Parvati in the hot engine room, talking to Welles and ADA for way longer than they had expected to, and keeping nimble with hand to hand practice with Felix in the workshop. In all honesty, Neena had been putting more thought into their end game in this weird situation that they had been dragged into, where they fit in Halcyon, where they fit on their ship. Where they  _ would _ fit into the lives of the people who called them their Captain. And a certain man was taking up much more than his fair share of that question. 

That  _ equation _ , it seemed, was proving even more problematic than the one that had previously enslaved this beautiful man's soul and mind _. _

But if Neena were to be honest, what he had brought them in here for was a distraction to those big questions. The kind that Neena had thought that they had successfully fled from, back on Earth.

Still— _ Damn, is there any chance he could let me go get a shower first _ —

Max’s lips softly parted as he rose his head up a few measures. “I think we both need our medicine, don’t you think?”

_ Medicine?  _ “Whatever you want to call it, love.” Neena stopped just short of calling him  _ hunk,  _ which he, far too unfortunately for their peace of mind, was. But at some point it had become more than dangerous to tease him, especially about something that hit far too close to home. 

What the fuck had happened to a serial master of the cut and run? At the rate they were going, Neena was going to end up as a housewife or husband or whatever the fuck someone like them ended up as—

Max shook his head, unbuttoning the front of his dress shirt before he grabbed at his undershirt as he yanked, freeing it from the trap of the waistband of his trousers. “No need to be defensive. We’re here to enjoy ourselves, so why don’t we try to?” His voice, always, was a soft tranquility, one that was in utter contrast to the maelstrom of his eyes.

Neena’s mouth felt dry as they watched his shirt come off. Very beautiful skin, half genetics and half tossball tanned, not ghastly pale like some of the people Neena had met in this system. God, but he was like an infusion of sunlight in their life, warm and penetrating.

Speaking of which…

Neena’s hands were working at their own shirt without any real thought. Grabbing, pulling up, only really realizing what they were doing as Neena felt the bare skin of their stomach free with the touch of the cool ship’s air on them. Feeling a little disturbed by how thoughtlessly they took their clothes off in his presence, Neena looked up at Max, what felt like for once in their life waiting for direction.

They didn’t want to admit how much they wanted him to keep this going, tell them to do it. Take their clothes off and let their frustrations out. Be happy,  _ truly  _ happy, in the first time for days. No fear of failure, of disappointing.

As if he could read everything desperate, dirty, and vulnerable in their eyes, Max walked closer, having tossed his dress shirt aside and dropping his undershirt on the little desk he once used to read by; trying to find the answers to everything that he thought was wrong with the universe. Shirtless, Max looked just fantastic, nicer built than anyone his age should have been—or really, for anyone who was as lushly gentled as he was, at least had once claimed to be.

Well, when he wasn’t staring at the person who had unexpectedly unleashed a demon loose in his body. 

With that sneer starting to settle on his lips in a way that was far from unpleasant, Max said, in a mock empathetic voice, “Dear me, never thought I’d see the day that I would have the person who taught me to appreciate the ways of the flesh at a disadvantage. It seems like I’m more often than not having to guide a little lamb, as opposed to dealing with the person who took my virginity... with my ass.”

He was provoking them. Neena turned away from Max, unable to deal with the fact that it was him, of all people, who was talking to them like this. Like he knew them as well as he could read a tossball match while caught in the middle of its fray.

Their gaze danced over the walls of the ex-Vicar’s quarters, over the spot where his OSI flag used to hang, right above where he was standing, close to where his little table that now held his shed shirt was. Jeez, this room even  _ smelled _ like him, above the sometimes oppressive, metallic smell of the ship itself. Clean, with the subtle hint of all of the paper and books he stored in here.

Just the thought, that the tidy, seemingly always composed man who had always been at odds with them would end up in this room with them like this, gazing at them like Neena was something out of his fantasies, might have made  _ them _ wonder if this was just some bizarre creation out of their frustrated fantasies. 

He was, for a lack of a better term, just too damn good for them, honestly deserved someone better.

But instead of trying to save him, Neena finished pulling their own shirt off, tossing it next to them, bared from the waist up with only the weight of their bindings to cover them from Max’s overhot green eyes.

Max reached for them, hands sliding down Neena’s abdomen, hands cupping and running over belly, hips, back. Then he reached one of his hands up, gently guiding their chin up, pressing a kiss so sweet and gentle on Neena’s lips that it left them, not expecting the sign of strange affection, squirming. When he removed his lips to look down at them, Neena, frustrated, blurted something out they immediately regretted.

“What is this, Max, a tease of your boyfriend experience?”

Neena wanted to wrap a hand around their mouth and just scream into it. 

Something different flickered in Max’s eyes before it disappeared, but a grin started to spread on his lips. “Oh, sure. If you were to, hypothetically, give me a rating on this trial run, how highly would you grade Maximillion DeSoto as a boyfriend?”

Neena scoffed, throwing their head back. “Stop fucking around—”

Max drew their chin fully in his hand, forcing their eyes on him. He looked sophisticated; noble, even, in spite of the slight, humanizing blemishes and marks on his face. 

He wasn’t a young man, that much was for sure, and he didn’t try to pretend he was one. It was strange, how his maturity, which had once translated into him seeming unreachable and aloof, alien even, now seemed irresistible, made him feel all the more desirous, as if he knew who he was now and what he was capable of, had made peace with it. Had secrets of his own even to share with someone who was technically more proficient in intimate things.

His new fixation did give Neena pause; or at least, it should have. Recalling how devoted he was to the OSI, they had the suspicion that he was going to take his time in devoting himself perhaps too quixotically to whatever relationship they had together. Some new horrible, useless venture: the task of making someone who had no heart admit to wanting to be with him.

But in spite of those misgivings, Neena was helpless when they were so physically close to him, pouting at him and then was rewarded when the man leaned close, at first brushing his lips against theirs, then sinking into them with a satisfying, heavy kiss. 

Neena reached up, grabbing onto the back of his neck, letting him guide them onto his table, sitting their ass on the edge of it, his hips pressing into Neena in a way that had gotten to be far too familiar. 

He broke away, softly struggling for breath, his forehead pressed against theirs before he moved back, still maintaining his grip on them. “What I want is for you to give me a chance.” When Neena made a face, was about to tell him why he couldn’t go forward with this with someone like them, he added, “I took a big risk with you and it’s paid off, in spades. Why can’t you give me the same chance?”

It was almost too painful to keep looking at him. From their position, as Neena looked around Max, struggling to think clearly, they could see his old, hastily stashed lectern, sitting near the foot of his bed. Neena realized for the first time that a too familiar relic of a shared experience was sitting there, as though it were a viable artifact in the possession of a man of the cloth that was supposed to be using the wooden stand for something chaste and holy. 

The metal it was made of gave it a humble air, and thinking back to the rare experiences Neena had once had in their grandparents’ church, they could vaguely recall robed boys swinging small metal balls filled with actual sacramental incense. If Neena didn’t know any better—couldn’t recall, with blush-inducing specificity—what the incense holder had actually  _ done _ , they might have viewed the object in the room of an ex-holy man to be innocuous, even expected. 

But the sight of the thing that had caused their current situation in the first place struck Neena as much as the heat they saw in Max’s eyes.

Neena turned, looking at Max, wishing that they could control the unsteady stagger of their breath in their lungs. They were never good at pretending to be aloof or uninterested in sex, after all. “You know I can’t resist this.”

Again that strangely irresistible smirk spread across his face. “I happen to be well aware of your lack of control in that area, yes.”

Neena couldn’t stop themselves. They reached forward, caressed their hand against Max’s well-defined chest, but said, “You don’t get it. I never could say no. I don’t want to say no right now. I’m just—just a mess, a tragedy waiting to happen to someone like you.” God, why couldn’t they stop petting him, wanting to touch his skin?

The smirk on Max’s face spread into a grin. “What’s tragic about this? That I can’t sleep next to you, once this is all over? Or, rather, that you wouldn’t want to?”

Neena shut their eyes, hand coming to rest, right above his heart. Felt the rhythm of the muscle that kept him alive, wonderfully  _ alive _ . “You have to stop talking like that. If we’re gonna do this, you need to know that there’s certain things I can’t give you. Romance, long term intimacy. I can’t do anything but want to, to—”

Max cut them off, again raising their chin up again, leaning in close and kissing Neena deeply with barely restrained hunger. When he finally stopped, having flooded all of Neena with an incurable, aching desire, Max said, “I feel like I’ve been taking the reins too often recently. How about this: we go at your speed, do what you want to do, retracing our actions that first night we spent together.”

In spite of what he said about asserting Neena as the guiding force, the feel of his hands—trailing down their back, tracing the curves of their body—made Neena have to struggle to think, let alone maintain their composure. Still, they said, “Alright, I can do that.”

He smirked at them and said, “I knew you could.” And before Neena could think of anything to counter it, he brought his hands down, grabbed onto their hips and pulled them against him. The thought,  _ this isn’t letting me take the reins,  _ ought to have occurred to them. Instead it took an effort to not just melt into him, feeling his bare torso pressed up against their almost bare chest.

When Neena began to give into kissing him, they started to feel hazy memories of what they had done that night coming back stronger; memories of when it was Max’s turn up to bat.

Neena could have glared at him for his inopportune and more than likely purposeful choice in when he decided to tell Neena that they ought to take control. Yeah,  _ take control _ when it came time for them to let good old Max rail them in every way possible.

Still, it wasn’t exactly disappointment or resentment that bore its way through them as they looked up into Max’s eyes, Realized their fate was sealed as they asked, “Please tell me you have condoms in here.”

He rose an eyebrow at them, but the infernal energy in Max’s eyes lay in contrast to the calm composure he was pretending at. “But of course. What tools do you think I was referring to?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short one, because I am in the middle of revisions with my original manuscript.
> 
> Yes, and *Persona 5: Royal*.
> 
> I have been off work for some time now, while my partner is deemed a "necessary" worker. Better than being unemployed, for sure for both of us. It's still far from perfect. I know there are likely some of you in a worse situation than me, though, so forgive my bitching; I just hope I've provided you some enjoyment in these strange times.
> 
> But if I could request something, if you haven't already, please leave a kudos and consider leaving a comment if you've read this far. It is becoming really easy to get buried with a weekly update and the amount of kudos to views I get does make me wonder if I should be spending this time revising with my manu. Not to hold this story hostage (I never would) but just a reminder: writers are people, too, and it took me a while to plot this out and write it, so keep not just me but any other writers whose work you read in mind in the future, m'kay? And, this is a really big story, keep in mind how much content I've ALREADY shared and will continue to share.
> 
> Alright, bitching over, I really do have a story I need to revise.
> 
> \----k.


	17. 16. In-Depth Counseling: Part 2

When he had said that they would at least be trying to emulate the experience of that first night, Neena might have assumed a few things. One; that they would be going into it clinically, almost calmly; after all, in Neena’s memory, when it became Max’s turn to pay Neena back for the long, hard fuck they had given him, he had been almost slow, deliberate, befitting someone who had never penetrated someone before—in spite of how eager he looked. Secondly, Neena had thought that he would take them to the same place where he had first fucked them. A bed.

As they kept kissing, making out and groping each other, Neena only realized that the man’s fingers had worked their binding loose when his hands slid around to their chest, filling his hands with their over-ample tits.

Neena bit back a moan. They had always been weak-kneed from some attention paid to their chest, made all the more irresistible after they had been so recently freed from their prison. As they unintentionally leaned back, overcome from the surprise of his hands on them, they opened their eyes to see that Max was staring down at their chest, the intention of what he was about to do written on his face.

Max lowered his head, stooping as he buried his face in their chest, hands palming around the outer curves. Neena could feel his mouth moving, sucking and closing over whatever skin he went over, the heels of his unsmooth hands sliding over the hard, firm peaks of their nipples. 

Neena had to fight from jutting their body against his reflexively. Damn, it wasn’t right to be so turned on by some inexperienced man, whose enthusiasm for a naked body was almost as great as some horny teenager’s. He made them feel like a true object of desire, as if, as he had once said, this was how he now chose to express his devotion through some form of worship.

When he slid his face out of the center of their chest and ran his mouth over one of their breasts, Neena couldn’t stop the high pitched moan that came out of their mouth. The feel of his lips closing over one of the nipples he had teased to an unbearable degree was so much that Neena finally lost control of the lower half of their body, thrusting against Max as he choked out a sound that might have been either a chuckle or a moan of his own.

He sucked, tongue laving over the hard, pebbled tip, his hands abandoning their chest as he reached around them, pulled Neena closer to him until their ass was precariously hanging off of the edge of the table. He sucked for so long that Neena was about to just demand he pull his pants off and give them what they had been craving for far too long. Then, without warning, he released the nipple with a loud,  _ pop!,  _ and quickly swept his head over to the other one, mouth latching on as his wide lips rubbed, teased, then he hungrily swept his tongue over it. He sucked, his mouth encompassing far more of Neena’s tit than just their nipple, hot, ungentle.

Neena let out a series of sharp, begging cries, legs kicking around the prison they had made of Max’s torso, knees hitting the curves of his hips. They had never come from just getting their nipples sucked and played with, but there was a first time for everything, and Neena wanted to grind against something…

Max pulled his face away, revealing a pleased expression covered in the shining wet of his spit and a rosy blush on his cheeks. “You have no idea how hard it is to not want to do that, when I first saw these.”

Any cleverness, any joking that Neena might have wanted to do, was lost as frustration took over. This was why Neena often enjoyed being the dominant; left to someone else’s machinations or mercy showed them to be a needy mess. Proving this, Neena thrust themselves towards him, only to find that they had managed to jut themselves off of the edge of the table.

With a shout, Max grabbed them, his body pressed against theirs as he bore them against the edge of the table. Neena shook their head, realizing too late what they had done, would have surely, without the help of their far too kind ship’s counselor, toppled to the floor. 

Thoughtless, they looked up at Max and felt a surge of love, the real kind, the sort that someone like them tried their hardest to not feel, an unprovoked feeling of relief at having someone they trusted implicitly to catch them, to please them, so much that it immediately scared the shit out of them. And, even if Neena tried to ignore it, reaching up to kiss him fiercely, letting it spread like a filling heat through their chest, they felt a deepness, a fulfilling context that made being with this man much more enjoyable than it could have otherwise been.

Neena didn’t have a chance. He tasted like barbed sarcasm wrapped in sweet sincerity, fresh inexperience housed in maturity. A hot guy with a brain and rampant libido.

He also seemed to taste like love, in spite of all things that screamed to the contrary that this was a bad idea.

And, god, his  _ body _ —

Max bore down on them, both people’s hands shifting, moving along each others’ bodies without any rhyme or reason, until almost at the same time they found the waistband of each others’ pants. It was hard going; it seemed like neither wanted to separate this time, stop kissing as they struggled to tear their buttons loose. To be truly free, here in secret, with each other.

Frustrated, Neena pulled away, looking down as they struggled to tear the pants off of this man who felt like he was just as excited as them, if the hard part of him that had been straining almost through the fabric of his trousers whenever Neena’s hand flailed past it was any indication. As Neena managed to pull his pants down, they looked up and saw the grin stretched across his face.

At first, Neena wanted to ask him what the hell right he had with looking at them like that. Then they felt as his hands tightened on their pants, forced the button holding onto them loose, then unzipped them in an almost singular motion. He dove one of his hands down the front of their opened pants, spreading his fingers as he cupped them over their underwear.

Max’s eyelids had slid half-closed over his eyes as he slipped a hand over the fabric that irritated and clung to the hot, sensitive skin, one edge of his lips lifting, leaving an utterly pleased expression on his face. “You’re always so ready for me.” And before Neena could tell him not to, could recall their earlier discomfort regarding how much they wanted a damn shower, he pulled his hand over the edge of their shorts and slipped behind the waistband, thick middle finger sliding against their labia until he was coated in their slickness.

Staring them directly in the eyes—that smirk never leaving his face—Max pulled his hand out and brought his fingers up to his mouth, sucking on the tips of his three central fingers. Pulling them out, his tongue snaked out and laved against the curves and edges of his fingers, a purely carnal look in his eyes. 

Shocked by the lewd act and expression on his face, Neena said, “I’m not exactly clean.”

Max shuddered, pulling his hand away and sitting forward so that his arms formed a barrier on either side of Neena, hands resting on the table within achingly short distance of their hips. “You have been a Captain all damn day.  _ My  _ Captain. I love the taste, it’s so hot.” Before Neena could counter that from experience they preferred a clean pussy for dining preference, Max leaned forward and started to kiss Neena’s neck, tongue laving against the lines of their collar bone, the sinews in their neck.

Neena moaned, almost crying in pleasure even before he did what was seemingly a terrible habit that he had picked up from them and sucked, biting down. They started to spasm, heart beating so loud and heavy in their chest that it felt like they were going to hyperventilate. Neena started to protest as Max released his mouth, saying, “You can’t keep doing that to my neck!” 

If he kept it up, everyone would start getting suspicious of their Captain’s newfound preference for turtlenecks and chunky scarves. And Neena had never been the kind for either.

With a long, almost growling sound that resonated from the back of his throat, Max said, “You’re right. I want to bite your cunt.”

Neena jerked, still somehow capable of being surprised by this man. Sitting further back, Neena awkwardly shifted in their only partially removed trousers, knowing that it was time that their boots came off. As they tried to ignore the man who was looking at them as though he was about to pounce, Neena pulled their legs up and grabbed onto the laces of their boots.

_ God _ , they were high; must have been. It felt like they were too close to just losing themselves in him. Losing the power they had over the relationship they had, over their own _ emotions. _

Their hands trembled, but Neena managed to rip their left boot off, only to realize that Max was walking away. Neena looked up, their hands tight around their remaining boot, watching as he moved. Too damned close to begging him to come back.

Instead, Neena managed to ask, “Hey, thought we were in the middle of something…”

Max turned, giving them a conspiratorial look as if they were sharing a secret, one hand keeping his unfastened trousers against his waist as he walked over to the incense holder and lifted the top off. With his other hand he pulled something out that Neena recognized, immediately brought to mind the first night they had spent together.

He was holding more than two condoms in his fist as he turned, the sight of the unintentional promise made by their presence in his hand making Neena swallow reflexively.

It ought to have been humiliating, not intoxicating, how he looked at them as he was walking towards them, that look in his eyes that burned then returned as he said, “Don’t worry, I don’t plan to leave you for very long at all tonight.” 

This was, unbelievably, that cheap preacher that they had picked out of Edgewater, like some milkweed from a swamp. 

Max walked until he was standing between Neena’s legs, setting the  _ handful _ of condoms down on the table next to Neena, then he reached over, took hold of Neena’s still booted foot. No longer held up, his pants dropped to his ankles, and he seemed to not notice, or care.

As he took the boot off, he immediately grabbed onto Neena’s waistband, pulled their pants and underwear off, forcing Neena back as he finished pulling them loose of their legs. Neena watched him, unable to not stare at his face, at the calm yet tense expression as he took the rest of Neena’s clothes off, tossing them onto the bed behind his shoulder.

Neena felt the words come out of their mouth, the words of a person that was at the mercy of the man wedged between their opened legs. “You know, this isn’t the only time we’ll ever, uh…. you don’t need to…”

Max grinned, leaning forward to press his finger to their lips in a gesture that ought to have been enraging. Softly, in that voice that belonged to a counselor and not to the near-nude man who looked more than ready to penetrate his vulnerable Captain, he said, “Call it making up for lost time." He rolled his eyes. "Or,  _ sex therapy _ , however you want to call it.”

And, as though this were as normal to him as study had been, Max turned his attention to a condom packet, ripping it open, tossing that onto the table. Neena could only watch, breathless, as he sank back a few centimeters and, holding his erect dick, slipped the prophylactic down in a gesture that made a greedy, horny Neena think lewdly of him jerking himself.

They were a lost cause; imagining him masturbating almost making them drool when they were so close to being—

Max sank forward, almost as if he meant to hug their naked torsos together. Neena bit their lip in anticipation. 

They had been fucked, more times than they could count. Fingers, tongues, mouths, dildos. Dicks. But none before had belonged to Maximillion DeSoto; a guy who, if their hazy memories was right, was capable of going all night long.

Their arm shook as they reached up, grabbing onto the thick shape of one of his shoulder blades, honed by tossball swings and rough tackles, shoves, the knockback of a shotgun blast. Tried to get ready for the wild ride to come. 

Nothing prepared them as Max parted them and, with a soft, endearingly characteristic sigh, slipped into them as he dropped his head close to theirs.

Neena’s head turned, mouth latched onto the side of his neck, tasting, smelling his skin. They could feel the resonating rumble that traveled up his chest to his throat, vibrating their lips. It was everything they had been craving—the feel of him, tense, sliding into them, parting, filling…

They managed to gently bite down into his freshly tanned skin before Neena slumped back, letting the full body sensation of being pushed into slide all the way up to their head. Their eyes closed, going ragdoll for a second as they fell back. Forgot that they weren’t on a bed, on anything, really, meant to hold someone who was being railed and laying on top of it.

The feel of their head striking something, hard, sent Neena gasping, jerking forward instinctively. Impaling them on all of Max.

Both shouted, and as Neena came down from the twin sensations of whacking their head on the wall and impaling themselves on Max, they blinked and groped at their head, then looked down at where they were connected to Max’s pelvis. 

In spite of the ringing pain in the back of their head, Neena was more shocked by the sight, of being connected in such a primal, clear way to the man who had once been the broken moral compass of the ship, made them have to fight to realize that they had just hit the back of their head, hard.

The feeling of Max pulling all of the way out—a few moments after he probably should have—brought them back down to earth. Connected them to the pain in the back of their head. Well, mostly.

Neena cried out, “Ah, fuck!”, both out of pain and sheer sexual frustration. 

Max was already grabbing onto them, turning their head in his hands until they were looking up at his wide, unblinking green eyes. The eyes of the man that Neena had just been so ready to let fuck them.

Now he was just the man who winced, grimacing as he turned them in his arms, now picking them up. “For verity’s  _ sake _ —how hard did you hit the wall?”

Neena moaned, turning in his arms.  _ Fuck the head injury! _ “Put me back, I’ll be careful.”

Max, who seemed about to pull them onto the bed, turned, stared at them. His face was pink, bordering on an increasingly violent red. With extreme care, he said, “Neena, you might have a  _ concussion _ —”

Neena reached down, grabbed onto the other immediate concern which was still, while shrinking, encased still in a slickened condom. They felt the answering jolt in the man holding them and didn’t miss the way Max bit his bottom lip. They knew in a moment that they had found a soul mate in sheer lust, at least. One who, as he had said earlier, waited for far too long to experience this pleasure.

And they didn’t want to prolong it any longer.

Staring him into his eyes, Neena ordered, “As the Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ , DeSoto, put me back on that table and fuck me hard before you have to take me to Ellie.”

Neena didn’t know that Max’s usually soft eyes could go any wider, and then they did. If Neena had any question of if it had abated his desire at all, they felt his dick begin swell up in their hand.

He still enjoyed being bossed, it seemed. Maybe the same amount he enjoyed getting one over on them. Max’s mouth fell open and he blinked. There, they could see the two sides of Maximillion DeSoto at war; the newly generous, empathetic man. And the ravenous fuck machine that Neena had just turned on.

The fuck machine won.

Max let out a pained groan, rolling his eyes before his mouth set in a tight, affirming line. He was already turning Neena back down as he snarled out, “By the Engineer’s  _ fucking  _ fake bones,  _ fine _ !”

It sure didn’t feel like he was doing some accursed job, as they took the soundproofing in the room to task. Neena’s moan only just managed to swallow up the sound of Max’s long groan as he thrust all the way in in a single, irresistible motion that felt both too slow and too quick at the same time.

With their hand pressed firmly to the back of their head—and making doubly sure to not fall back but to stay sitting up, legs wrapped around the columns of the backs of Max’s own—Neena welcomed the roiling sensation of pleasure to carry their pain away. This was the best pain killer Neena had ever tried, enough to make them forget they had fucked the back of their head up. That they had turned the weird priest in that town that stank of ambiguous biological matter into their lover.

He certainly felt good enough to ride with any debilitating injury, hell, even if Neena had just lost a limb.

Whimpering, Neena fixated on the sight first of his torso, then on his arms, whose hands were spread over their thighs, holding them apart. Neena’s gaze traveled up, past his neck, looked into his eyes.

Neena had made it a habit to not look people in the eyes when they were fucking or getting fucked by them. A skilled sex worker had once told them, passed on as a warning from someone who once knew their reputation better than anyone, that looking into the eyes of someone while you were sharing physical pleasure was a surefire way to contract the kind of STD you couldn’t fend off with any amount of latex. The kind that made you believe in stupid shit, like true love.

He looked so perfect, green eyes hazing over bright, eyebrows knit into a helpless expression, as if he were just a passenger in a body that did what it wanted, his lips fallen slightly open. Some of that hair fallen loose, irresistibly close to the side of his head.

Something was wrong with them, beyond a concussion. Neena leaned forward, not caring that the feel of him inside of them was almost too much pressure to bear so soon into starting, and licked their lips, waiting for him to bend down, to obey the subtle motion. Max did bend down, driving some precious more of himself into Neena’s waiting body, his hips juttering in a soft rhythm as he laid his mouth over theirs, lips parting, tongue snaking into their mouth. 

He tasted so good. Too good.

Neena reached over, the pain in the back of their head forgotten as they groped, taking hold of his powerful hips, fingers finding purchase beneath the edge of the waist of his underwear, then gripping tight onto the indents on either side of his hips. They felt him groan in response, and as if Neena had put a special command in, he let them have it.

Mouth entangled with theirs, Max pulled halfway out, then all the way in, hitting hard, clutching Neena’s body tight, hands now on the back of Neena’s shoulders as he pushed and pulled himself in and out. 

Neena was in ecstasy, almost flailing back to repeat the same mistake they had made earlier. He felt like a dream, raging like a piece of machinery, his mouth using theirs ceaselessly, grabbed onto them tight. 

It was insane to imagine, but reality seemed to be proving the seemingly impossible right; Max was more than an exaggerator. And he kept  _ going _ .

Used to someone who wasn’t using a digit or an object to penetrate them tapping out or needing a break, Neena realized that they were still pinned to the little table that the man used to read at in those chaste blue vestments, long enough to feel the need to beg him to move them, the cramping pain in their entangled legs almost more than the pain radiating from the back of their head. 

Neena pulled away, long and far enough to gasp out, “Max, move, move me, stand me—”

Thinking that they still had some modicum of control on him, Max surprised Neena as his freed lips found their chin, then traveled down, roughly kissing their neck before he found their collar bone, biting down.

Neena shrieked and started to thoughtlessly pound Max, half sitting as they reached up, grabbing onto his shoulders for dear, sweet life and penetrated themselves on him, not caring that they were crying, almost wailing in pain and pleasure. 

When he sat them down, pulling out, Neena almost forgot what they were asking for earlier, body vibrating with desire and hunger for more, more. He turned Neena around, breathing loud and heaving as he lined himself up with Neena’s aching pussy and thrust back inside, his hands groping and sliding all over the front of their body, merciless.

Neena shrieked, hands clawing the cold metal table until they found purchase on the other end, on either side of the table. They were totally at his mercy, barely able to keep their balance as the man inside and behind them thrust like he was an old hand at this. Not that this was his second time pillaging someone’s pussy.

“Oh, fuck,” Neena sobbed, face buried against the cold table, forgetting everything they ever thought they believed about themselves as they bawled out, “Fuck me, I’m yours, do it, do me…”

Max didn’t seem to have heard it, then he leaned in close, all of him engulfing Neena from the inside and looming over their back, the feel of his labored breath beating a primal rhythm on the back of Neena’s neck. “You mean it? You’re mine? Your…” he groaned, resumed beating their insides senseless with hard, sharp thrusts. “cunt, it’s mine?”

Neena almost leaned down and bit their arm to stop from screaming it. But the feel; the encompassing sensation of a big man pressed against and inside of them, the rough softness of his voice and his hands all over them, left Neena in pieces. All they knew was that they had never felt sex like this before, the context, the man they were with, his raw instincts.

It all drove them over the edge.

They blurted out, “All yours, just take, take… take whatever you want.” Neena almost broke into a desperate, heaving cry. They felt as connected to him as could have surely been possible, only missing the mental and emotional link they had shared that night. And they knew that he wanted them like this as equally. He didn’t want this to be a one time fluke. He wanted to possess them utterly and not share, not ever.

That thought should have repulsed or frightened them. Instead, Neena was bearing against him, close to just begging for more, for forever. Head injury, the wrong guy they should have been feeling these emotions for, especially in the context of who they were, let alone the fact that the Max they had always known had been a self-righteous, pompous ass—

Just the thought of how off limits this should have been left Neena slumped onto the table, hands clenched, futile, as if they wanted to beat off the lust and forbidden desires that filled them until there was no room inside of them for reason or logic.

And, god, he seemed to sense the moment that Neena succumbed, not so much to him, but to their want for him. Max leaned in, until Neena’s ass and back were pressed into him, his right hand reaching between Neena’s thighs, cupping their vulva, fingers stroking their clit and lips as he spoke in a husky near whisper. “You wild fucking thing. I want to do this forever with you.” He moved closer, until his lips, large and bruised from all of their kissing, were pressing against the edge of Neena’s ear. “Only sometimes with  _ me _ penetrating  _ you _ .”

Neena almost wanted to escape, at least some instinct in her body did, sending them flailing forward, grabbing for something, anything. Max reacted quickly, hand slick with Neena’s juices running against her face, other hand grabbing them by their torso, pulling, joining them closer, tight together. 

“Damn, you run hot. Let me try to keep up with you…” The sound of his panting, his broken words, filthy, profane, beautiful as a new lover bared before the hungry eyes of the object of their deepest desire, almost broke Neena anew. 

He must have sensed that there was something close to transforming in them, because Max positioned himself closer, moving slightly down behind them so that he was driving deep from a lower position. Hitting Neena’s clit with heavy, beating waves of pleasure even before he dropped that hand that he had been toying with Neena’s clit with earlier and resumed his earlier deviant behavior.

He must have done this with them before; in fact, if they focused on it, Neena could have remembered it. Neena felt close to an orgasm from climax and rough, hot tension, and Max picked up the pace, starting to hiss dirty, mindless phrases against the back of their neck.

“Come to me, give it up, we’re almost there, I want to feel you, want to feel it, come on…”

Neena collapsed under him, his penetration, his stroking, his words spewing profane trash. With a guttural cry, Neena tensed, their entire body growing into a taut line, impaling themselves completely on him.

They almost missed the loud groan that the man hugging them tight to his chest from behind let out, and the long, hard final thrust he gave. He remained in position for long enough for the warm waves of pleasure to leave Neena. And the hard, cold reminder of reality began to throb anew on the back of Neena’s head.

As Max pulled out, Neena expected him to leave them, half-collapsed on the table. As they felt him pull out of them, Neena almost jumped as they felt him joining his overwarm, sweating chest to their back. He wrapped his arms around them, this time the touch intimate. Sweet.

Neena almost told him what they shouldn’t, dazed in a strange mix of afterglow and aching pain when Max saved them when he said, “I really  _ did _ want to go all night, you know.” Something was defective in them, it was the only answer for why they almost asked Max, of all people, why he couldn’t, if he  _ really _ wanted to. 

Max leaned in closer, kissed the bare skin of Neena’s neck. The kiss was somehow not just strictly sensual or chaste, felt passionate, sincere in a strange way that sent a fresh shiver right down to Neena’s toes. 

“Have it my way, we’ll have plenty of time together while we’re on this ship to make up for this, too.” As he pulled away after a final hug that drew them close to him, a dry, oddly intimate chuckle came out of his throat as Neena rose a hand up to their head, turned around to look their bizarre lover in the eyes.

It was jarring.

He looked warm all over, that too-good-to-be-true body of his covered in a deep blush, chest still softly heaving. Bare legged, save his underwear. His dick, while now freed of the unjust prison of the rubber barrier that had encased it, was, unbelievably, growing back to his earlier enthusiasm.

Did Max even know how  _ good _ he looked—that he was too good of a prize for someone like his Captain to just pull into this type of perverted behavior? 

And then there was his face, post-coitus. He was almost unrecognizable from the man who had once had what Neena would have considered only the most next to punchable face in this system, with the undeniable winner being Graham. He was warm, bruised-lipped, his hair half a mess. And he was smiling, softly, at them.

If he had asked Neena then if they would agree to go out with him and only him, in spite of the fact that Neena knew he was dangerously no good in the care of someone who would take advantage of his about-face change of heart, Neena might have just blurted out the unfortunate truth on the spot. 

They leaned back against the table, all of their once practiced cool gone as they tried to match even a bit of the heady sensuality that Max gave off. Wished they looked aloof, not fucked up with a stupid head injury, borderline at his beck and call. “Hey, ready for a round two?”

Max bit his lip, this time looking like he was suppressing a laugh. Before Neena could demand to know what was funny, he shook his head, sighing as he unintentionally reached down to squeeze his growing dick. “Can’t risk it. I  _ do _ wish you would have been able to not harm yourself.”

Neena couldn’t look away from his dick, wet with his cum and the lubricant in the condom. They bet he tasted like a delicacy. The kind you went to hell for. It was the sound of snapping fingers—ludicrously, Max was now waving at them—that finally drew them from the erotic sight of his eager penis.

Neena instead snapped at him, saying. “What for? Don’t think you can keep it up?”

They half expected Max to take the bait. This man had grown more than a big dick in the time that Neena had gotten to know him; at least, this side of him. 

Instead, he chuckled, shaking his head as he took in a deep breath, turning around to find his shed trousers and underwear. “Don’t  _ test _ me, Captain Castillo. If I had it my way, I’d have you bent over like the way you just were, over in the damn cockpit.” When Neena let out a once-uncharacteristic gasp, he continued, saying, “I won’t fuck you again because I can’t risk you passing out.”

Neena’s ego came out of them, angry and ready for a fight. “Come off it! You, make me pass out? Are you fucking joking?”

Max, in the middle of sliding his underwear up his sinfully tight ass, turned around, his penis lewdly pointing out over the still unhitched waistband. Neena’s eye was drawn to the pointing third leg, wishing they had the balls themselves to just crawl over to him and pop it in their mouth. That or bury their face in that muscular ass.

With an infuriatingly calm, soothing voice, the voice of the ship’s counselor now returned permanently, he said, “Once you get a clean bill of health, I can give you any reward you might wish me to.”

Neena’s face burned hot in embarrassment—and desire.  _ Like when I was a kid at a doctor’s office _ — _ pick whatever prize you want from this chest. _ Except Neena knew too well what they would choose.

But instead of telling him exactly what they craved for a prize, Neena said, “You make it— _ really _ —hard to like you, you know that?”

Expecting him to answer back with his once normal refrain, something along the lines of,  _ I could very easily say the same of you,  _ with an infuriatingly calm look and with only the slightest twitch of a smirk, Max said, “Must not make it  _ that _ hard, for you at least.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday, here in the most boringest apocalypse.
> 
> I apologize, I really ought to know better than to expect anything more impressive, as I spent my childhood peering into the mediocrity that is the soul of middle America, in itself a cancer that only threatens to spread from lack of proper containment.
> 
> And hey, you're here to escape reality and at least enjoy some smut, and you're not wrong to want that. This is the endnote in a chapter full of unapologetic smut. I guess I decided to celebrate my birthday with unapologetic bitching.
> 
> Blah blah, I am writing new scenes to add to my first huge manuscript and I've been working on revisions of it in general. Trying to figure out how to make an original piece as HUGE as my first novel work might be adding to my malaise. I think the revisions on my original work is going great, but then again I'm the kind of person that bitches about the mediocre manner that our species has decided to self immolate itself in the author's notes of my sex scenes for a video game. 
> 
> It's cold and windy outside, and I don't know why; three days ago it was goddam hot in here. 
> 
> All I want for my birthday is for my dream of a cult to obey my every whim, peopled by intelligent and hot people, where we can reinact a Deltarune type of lifestyle together, watch Star Trek series that were made post the icky and problematic 70's, and read comics, to come to fruition. Anything less is an embarrassment, not just to me, but to you as well. Might as well read or write smut at the end of the world.
> 
> \---k.


	18. 17. Solitaire till Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I keep hearin' you're concerned about my happiness  
> But all that thought you're givin' me is conscience, I guess.  
> If I was walkin' in your shoes, I wouldn't worry none;  
> while you 'n' your friends are worried about me, I'm havin' lots of fun...

At some point the dopamine had to die down. And, as Neena tried to get back into their clothes with any degree of the calm that they needed to to pull every piece of what they wore back on, the Captain of _The Unreliable_ was left with not only the throbbing pain the back of their head, but also the continued presence of a man who was finished getting dressed much faster than Neena could. By the end of it Max was leaning against the same table where he had fucked them, watching them with an uneven smirk. 

It was odd. He was looking at them with that same strange, calm sense of normalcy that was by turns strangely exhilarating as well as infuriating. 

There was, also, a sense underneath it all of being worried for them. 

Neena winced, withstanding a sharp flare of pain as they stopped in the middle of pulling a boot onto one of their feet. Once they regained the ability to think, Neena heard Max speak, pure concern in his voice. “I’m sorry. Ought to have taken you on the bed.”

In spite of the situation, Neena had to suppress the need to laugh. “Don’t sound so concerned on my behalf.” When they looked up at him, they were surprised at the sober look on his face. Letting out a nervous cough, Neena looked back down at their boot, pretending to take a longer time getting it laced back up than they needed to so they could regain control of their breathing.

When did Neena _ever_ like the way that someone looked at them like they were worried about them, let alone found it _appealing_?

Neena stood back up, planting a winning smile on their lips as they looked at the man who still sat at the table, worry in his eyes. “Come on, take me to Ellie. If she asks, I fell down from the downward dog position you had me in.”

That managed to make a warming, wicked light return to his eyes and with what seemed like an innocent flick of his tongue, Max lapped at his bottom lip and looked away, insufferable grin growing on his face. “Some would think it’d just be easier to tell the truth, you know, Captain.”

* * *

Max entered the room with Neena as a crutch, and at first it felt like it was a natural, even normal thing to have him in there with them. After all, he was literally shouldering the blame for the injury, the excuse being that Neena tripped on a stack of his books that they had been reading from together as opposed to some stretching meditations.

It was almost plausible. Then Ellie, matter-of-factly administering the syringe of wickedly painful medicine into the offending injury, said, “So you took a fall after tripping on a stack of books—backward.”

Neena couldn’t see her face, but they had to imagine the skepticism that was almost missing from her voice. Still, Neena was committed enough to pretend that there was nothing weird happening between them and their ship’s ex-Vicar. “Yeah, I fell backwards and hit the table.”

She was silent for so long that Neena thought that they were home clear, or at least they could go back to pretending that they weren’t caught red-handed minutes after fucking Max. As Ellie pushed her Captain into the chair, Neena focused on the sharp pain in the back of their head from the medicine injection site and found their eyes drawn, unerringly, to the man leaning against the far wall of the room. 

Max watched his two crewmates, a soft smile on his lips. Just the sight of the expression on his face made something warm bloom in their chest. For once they didn’t push that feeling away, or make themselves believe it was just because they were horny. 

Neena realized their own mistake too late, as the good ship doctor walked to stand in front of her dummy, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared a hole into Neena.

“So I thought you said earlier that the back of your head hit the wall. You must either be accident-prone or I don’t even _know_ what.” When Neena just looked at her, feeling a pain in them that had nothing to do with the injury or the cure, Ellie rolled her eyes. “Alright, we were just gonna keep playing this stupid game of, “it isn’t abundantly clear that you two are humping like stray canids”, but now you both are forcing me to give the speech about watching how rough your sex is.” Too shocked to react to her, Neena stuttered limply before Ellie scoffed and, looking over at Max, she said, “Whatever you two are doing must be the _most_ fun, but if one of your fetishes involves concussions, then I have to tell you: I’m not about to keep up with fixing you.”

Neena choked out a half-laugh, half shrill cry, slapping the table a little too hard. “ _Him, me_?”

As soon as Neena finished trying to deny it as hard as they could, Max softly said, “It was an accident. I already feel terrible. I should have brought them here as soon as it happened.”

Neena moaned and dropped their head into their arms, slumped onto the desk in despair. “It’s not what you _think_ …”

Ellie said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but to be completely honest, I just wish you two would stop acting like you’re the height of subtlety or something. If you two can’t handle it kinkier, just keep it to a bed from now on.”

Max answered before Neena could try to save face, desperate as they just fought the urge to take a run out of the room. “I don’t think that will be a problem in the foreseeable future.”

Neena threw their arms out, nearly exploding as they shouted at Ellie, “That’s because we aren’t having sex!”

Ellie stared at Neena, then blinked. She turned her face up, addressing the ceiling as she said, “Hey, ADA, how obvious is the sexual tension between these two?”

ADA spoke with barely a moment of hesitation. “Even for me it’s been getting quite old, then again being the personality of a computer program, I would imagine that if I were in the situation they were in that I would have gotten this part of the, ‘will they? Won’t they”, that’s the mainstay of aetherwave romances to a minimum. Now it’s truly overstayed its welcome.”

Neena couldn’t help it. Enraged at the mutiny that had come from not only their ship doctor, their A.I, but even from their partner in this particular crime; the ship counselor, they shouted at ADA, “You’re supposed to be a part of _The Unreliable_! MY ship!”

ADA answered back, apparently possessing no sense of shame, proprietary, or loyalty. “Captain, you must be miserable having to keep this blatant lie up. Don’t continue to lie to yourself; this is a deceit to no one but yourself at this point.”

Neena wanted to keep shouting, demand a little respect from the A.I of their own fucking ship. Unfortunately the return of the sharp pain in the back of their head had Neena dropping their face into their waiting arms, moaning as they felt a shockwave of pain arc behind their eyes. As they laid their head in their arms, Neena became aware of the weight of a hand on their shoulder, a large, too familiar one. 

From where she had moved to the other side of the table—the same kind that Neena had gotten their injury on—Ellie let out a long, annoyed sigh. “You keep getting yourself worked up, you’ll exacerbate the injury site. It’s going to take some time to heal, even with top of the line stolen meds. Yelling isn’t going to help.”

With the surely damning weight of Max’s hand on them, Neena moaned out, “This has got to be a fucking joke.”

Yes, how did Neena end up with the one person they ought to have known better than to touch, occupying so much of their mental and emotional real estate? A fucking _ex-holy_ man.

Ellie spoke, apparently ignorant to the crisis that her supposed Captain was having. “Probably should heal up soon, we can go back to dealing with some jobs out on Monarch, right?”

Neena realized that Max had never taken his hand off of their shoulder.

* * *

Everyone had left them alone, only because Ellie thought that Neena would be better off with some time in their room to not have any reason to get emotional and exacerbate their pain. But left alone in their room, Neena found that they couldn’t relax any more than if they were in the room with Max. In the sense that if they were alone with the man, at least they would have had the outlet of fucking him.

They sat down on their bed for no longer than a minute before Neena was up and pacing the room, mind wild with solutions to problems they didn’t even want to admit existed. 

Neena pulled the pillow off to bury their face into it and scream, an old habit that more than predated their time at the helm of _The Unreliable._ It was the sort of behavior that Neena had once thought was well in their past; getting so frustrated over someone that they had to scream their emotions into a pillow. The whole time, a stream of thoughts would not stop running through their head.

_I’m too old to be angsting over someone._

_Over an old man._

_Over some fresh ex-virgin._

_Over some recent man of the cloth._

_Over_ fucking _Maximillion DeSoto._

When they staggered over to their chair and buried their face into the pillow, Neena thought that they at least had the comfort of being able to be alone in their room for the night. No one needed to see them, of all people, rage crying over a totally avoidable fate that they had created for themselves. Really, what did they _think_ was going to happen, getting involved with a friend, a co-worker?

A really hunky, well-spoken volcano of hot passion?

Neena bit into their pillow and flailed, kicking their feet as they punished that dumb dumb sentiment for daring to show up, in all peoples’ heads, in the mind of the once-infamous fuck machine themselves. The one who bragged that they could love and leave without an ounce of regret—at least, on their part.

What was this, retribution for all of the grannies and grandpas that Neena might still have living back on Earth with memories of the best lay they’d ever had, along with a potential broken heart to go along with it? 

Whatever it was, Neena decided that they wanted none of it. Tossing the pillow to the side and cradling their forehead in their hand, Neena called out to ADA, “Hey, are the other monkeys on the ship asleep yet?”

ADA took a second longer to respond than was necessary. “Captain, what are you planning?”

In that moment, all of the cool and calm that Neena had been working on left them, sick of everyone acting like they knew them. Like they knew what was good for them. They snapped at their A.I, “Just tell me if everyone’s asleep yet. Or at least not wandering around out of their room.”

* * *

Neena took an hour until they decided to go through with their plan. With everyone in their beds—or, at least, their rooms—they slunk out, down the stairs and into the bridge. Only when they could tell ADA to keep her voice down—to the obvious disapproval of the A.I—did Neena order them to travel to the place where their current torment had started.

Looking over the floating meteor turned outlaw expanse, teeming with primals and just as pissed off automechanicals, Neena wondered how in the hell this place had been where they had first made love with the big asshole they had spent the first two months and some change knowing, wishing they could give a swirlie.

Wait. _Make love?_

Neena tugged their jacket, not one of the pieces that had been made or altered by David, tighter around themselves, as if the despicable feelings that they were being subjected to were nothing more than hard rain that they could try to shield themselves with.

No, they didn’t make love. Neena _fucked_. Just ask any of those old fogies back on Earth who their daddy was—if they still had enough marbles in their head to rattle together to remember their early years. It was just a damn shame that Neena had not had a chance to sleep with anyone appealing before they had their little head trip with their ship’s ex-Vicar; if they had gotten anything to satiate the libido that had pulled them into their predicament, then, maybe…

“Initiating entry, docking on the landing pad.”

Neena let a breath that they hadn’t realized was trapped in their lungs. They began to feel guilty for snapping at their pilot and strange friend. “Good work, ADA.”

ADA, apparently not having forgiven them, said, “I am not like SAM. I know I do good work.” To illustrate this, ADA’s visual monitor gave Neena a testy glare. “But I will take the compliment as long as I can remind you that it is not in your best interests to blow up at the A.I and pilot who has control over your ship. The ship you sleep in at night. In a room which circulates oxygen and maintains the temperature that allows you to remain living. The pilot whose expert skill keeps this ship from crash landing.”

Neena winced, rubbed at their face. “Sorry, sis. I usually know better, I didn’t mean to snap at you. You know how stressed I’ve been.”

ADA’s generated face switched so that she was giving the Captain the side eye, but it was better than the hard stare she had been giving them. “Very well, Captain. If you mean to make a hasty escape, then I recommend you leave while you can.” As Neena turned to leave, they were drawn back to the display when ADA said, “Captain, if I may?”

Neena shifted, uneasy, ready to book it at ADA’s recommendation. “What is it?”

Her face changed to a look of open concern, eyes not meeting theirs. “I hope you’re not planning on abandoning us. I do not think I would do well with any of the others at the helm. No one knows how to make all of us function with any semi coherence. Short of the third Captain Hawthorne, I don’t think I could find a better person to take the helm. Not of the ship, mind you. Steering and controlling the ship is my purview, of course.”

About to take a run, something made Neena look at the suddenly vulnerable face that their ship’s A.I generated. Realized that ADA was showing what seemed an awful lot like an emotional vulnerability. More proof than what they had already seen, that this ship was much more special than even its A.I pretended. 

They tried to smile at the A.I’s visual monitor, relieved that they had had a lot of time to practice disingenuous smiles, but knew that unlike nearly everyone else—with, perhaps, one notable exception—on board, it didn’t matter how real the smile looked, ADA had to know that it was strained on their face. They said, “Don’t you worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

Well, soon enough, that was. For now, Neena wanted to get off of this ship. Get away from memories of people and things that made them feel far too vulnerable. And they had an idea of just who to talk to, figure out if there was a way to reverse everything that had happened to them—and to Max—thus far. Fix them so that they could be the person that everyone on board needed, could save _The_ _Hope._

* * *

It was late at night; not that on a meteor like Scylla was it much mattered. Out here it was always night, all the time. Just as well; Neena felt wired, and like always, they felt like skulking or swaggering through the night when they were wide awake. Only this time Neena wasn’t on the prowl for some strange. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But be that as it may, when it came to any place in the Halcyon system, the strange had a habit of finding them. 

So in spite of how their emotions were starting to catch up with them, Neena crept around carefully, mindful, no matter how good they had gotten at plugging anything that tried to get the drop on them first, that they could only ever fend off so many things at once. And, since the back injury, Neena had been more mindful than they normally might have been of how mortal they really were. Even if, as Gladys had already pointed out, they had “died” twice already.

They were sure that there would not be a third time; at least, not without Ellie present to revive them. After all, a good alley cat only had so many lives to spend on dodging fate.

In a hurry to get to their destination, Neena almost lost their patience as they crouched behind a big pile of rocks, waiting for a herd of primals to move on from their path. Some part of them even thought that, barring their once preferred mode of letting off steam, shooting something that had a professed desire to kill them first would be a great way to let off stress.

But through all of that, Neena didn’t allow it to distract them from their goal in coming here. And, after what felt like an agonizing amount of time that it spent to reach it, Neena found themselves standing in front of a too familiar shack. But, in spite of their belief that they were in a hurry to get here, they found themselves hesitating as their hand drew close to the door. 

What the hell were they going to say? What would they do?

Why the hell did they come here in the first place?

Letting the scowl that had wanted to settle on their face appear, Neena ignored all of those thoughts and opened the door. 

Only to discover that everything inside of the hut was gone, even the lingering odor of the “incense” and the damned hermit’s B.O.

Neena heard the door shutting behind them as they collapsed on their knees, dismay and disbelief already ringing out in their head where confusion and rage had been paramount.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter title and synopsis are from lyrics from "Flowers on the Wall"; listen to the version with Johnny Cash!)
> 
> You know that feeling, where you're quite literally waiting for your supervisor to contact you to tell you if the stay at home order applies to you or if you need to go into work *tomorrow*? Yeah. At least I have a cat who's insisted on wedging himself on my lap, squashing himself under my computer lap rest. He's warm.
> 
> I have been slacking off, but after about what I think is over 60 ACTIVE (not counting when I wander off or actually do some writing while the game runs on a pause screen) hours with *Persona 5: R*, I have decided to let the game cool down a bit for me while I work on my Scrivener with my original manuscript. I'm just... all of the data and pieces of information I've gathered is A LITTLE OVERWHELMING. But almost more overwhelming is the pressure of the four projects I have to follow this one up... I think the insane urge I have to keep up with my weirdo head canons of my own story worlds is going to push me through getting through this. Ugh, I am such a horny writer.
> 
> Anyway... oh, yeah, I posted a whole new chapter up there, didn't I? It does my black heart good to see that this story strikes a chord with people, it really does. These weekly uploads sometimes keep me going... and not throw my broom at the ill-mannered children who live below me, like a pike when they shriek and bark. The reckoning of the wild children from this is coming. 
> 
> It's also relieving to make a story and just share it, as opposed to work and work, then worry about what to do with my original manu once I finish with it. 
> 
> Sorry for the griping. I don't know what to put in these things; GEE, HOW ABOUT THAT CORONAVIRUS, AMIRITE? Ugh. *shoves face full of baking chocolate*
> 
> \----k.


	19. 18: Asteroid Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A helping hand can sometimes come from unexpected places.

Neena walked from room to room in the shack, and although the search took just a matter of seconds, it felt like every step they made felt like it lasted an eternity. The last place they looked in was the backroom; the place where they and the now ex-Vicar Max had gotten to know each other well. Too well.

As they looked at the empty room, having to recall where everything was so that they could confirm for themselves that they weren’t losing their minds and remembering something that they had dreamed up, Neena let reality settle on them, slowly sliding down the far wall where the headboard of the enormous four-post bed had once been. At least, where they could have sworn it was.

As Neena’s tailbone connected with the floor, they stared at the room one last time, willing the place to come back like how it was in their memories. A big  _ fucking _ bed, two chairs, a loveseat, a lecturn, a chest, and a table that held the incense burner, right in the goddamn center.

Right?

Neena whimpered, discovered that they couldn’t stare at the empty room a moment longer. Something broke loose in them, and the Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ shot to their feet, letting out a loud scream that they had been holding in for far, far too long.

They wanted something to kick, to hurt. Hopefully something inanimate, but hell, something that moved would do just fine. Perhaps too well. 

Neena rushed out of the abandoned house in a haze, hand at the ready with their modified tossball stick, ready to do something about all of those automechanicals that they had seen on their way here.

They ran full force at the floating sentry, aiming a hammering overhead blow down on top of the thing that barely had time to realize they were there before it was laying in pieces on the ground. The big sentry was just turned around in time for Neena to barrel straight at it, their once hesitation they used to have with attacking the wildly armed robots, forgotten in the face of a head full of rage. It wasn’t until Neena was standing over their second sentry, sweating hands clenching the bottom of the big dumb racket that blitzed with electricity with every strike they had taken on a metal body, that they realized that something, almost more than rage, filled them until it felt like they were breathing the emotion out as they exhaled.

Neena stared down at the broken carapace at their feet, realized that the hand wrapped around the end of the racket was shaking.  _ Shaking. _

They wrapped a hand over their eyes, wondering why they were breathing so goddamn hard when all they did was smash a few automechanicals. And not  _ just _ breathing hard. Their face itched, and Neena only realized it when they moved their hand away, that they had been crying.

The thing about crying for them was that more than feeling sad, weeping always made them angrier than anything. 

Throwing the stick in their hand away, Neena felt the scream tear out of them, realizing only as they regained some semblance of control that it actually came out sounding more like bawling.

That sound, coming from their throat, was more than enough to bring Neena back to reality. Gasping, struggling to regain, what,  _ whatever was left of their so-called cool? _ , Neena bent down, grabbed the thankfully nonlethal side of their tossball stick, and realized that they had made a mistake. Yet another one, in a long line of dumb fucking choices, if you could even call half of what they decided or mistakenly did as being  _ choices _ . 

Running out here in the middle of the night like they were back at the premium prison that their parents had called a college—scaling the wall on the search for something, anything, to make their over-privileged life feel like it had meaning, back when they used to return there every morning like a good piece of clockwork. Like one of the robots they had just smashed to bits. Oh yeah, Neena was a big fucking  _ hero _ alright, adept at running away, at playing dumb games with people as a way of giving their life importance outside of what had been given to them, like some curse.

And now, what were they going to do? Well, what the hell else could they do, besides going back to their ship with their tail in between their legs? 

Still, Neena sighed, looking at the wreck they had made. 

What they were thinking was echoed by the voice that came behind them, belonging to a familiar, young male. “Why’re you out here doing this?”

Neena turned, surprised, but still riding an emotional high that stopped them from being shocked by the sudden appearance of someone behind them. They looked at Felix Millstone, shame igniting the combustible mess of emotions that filled them. And it made the situation feel real, where before everything had started to feel like a dream. Or maybe just a fucked up nightmare.

So used to pouring on charm for the benefit of everyone, Neena looked at Felix, knew that based on the look that was on the young man’s face that it was an expression on their own that he had never seen before. Knew from experience that it wasn’t a pretty sight to look at.

Still gripping the tossball stick’s handle, Neena glared at the man and said, “I could say the same to you,  _ kid. _ ”

Felix held his hands out, eyes wide as he beheld the true face of his ship’s Captain—the face of the person who had come to the Halcyon system in the hopes of escaping their past, not particularly in building it with anyone. Strangely, he didn’t retreat when he had the chance to. “You can’t go out here alone. What—what the hell are you doing out here at this time of night?”

Neena felt their mouth falling open as they said, “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Huh, guy?” When Felix only stared at them, they took a step closer, relishing the continued look of shock on the young man’s face. “Do you even know what I’ve done to boys like you?”

Felix flinched and his face started to turn red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But there was something in his face, in how red he was turning, that made Neena know that he knew what they were insinuating.

Something ought to of reined Neena in before they said something they might have regretted. Instead, they said, “I used to make naive young things, just like you and Parvati, think that I loved them. Then I would get what I wanted and leave. It was the easiest thing you could imagine doing.” They felt the cracked, horrible smile that stretched across their face, welcomed it. “I show people like you a whole new world, then I leave them, like it's nothing.”

Felix seemed to find it difficult, impossible to keep looking at them. He gazed at the sky, his skin creeping with a growing blush as he looked stunned. Stuttering, Felix finally said, “C-Captain, I don’t know what’s going on here, I don’t feel that way about you, no offense or nothing—”

Neena felt a weak laugh come out of their throat. Tossing the stick they had been holding onto the ground, Neena clutched their mouth, not sure if they wanted to scream or cry. Instead, then pulled their hands away and looked at the poor, naive boy, just starting to realize how inappropriate this outburst was. One that, even for them, they could not pin down what it was that had made them say it. 

They weren’t attracted to Felix, as much as it seemed that he, thankfully, was not attracted to them. And didn't he deserve this, as much as poor, in his own way, still naive Max didn’t deserve them to be his first sexual partner.

Closing their eyes, Neena turned, about to walk away, remembering at the last moment before they could that they had dropped their stick. Feigning a good-natured laugh, Neena said, “Nevermind, forget I said anything.”

Before Neena could pick their stick up and escape with some semblance of their pride intact, Felix stuttered at them, said, “W-wait, you’re just gonna leave?”

Neena picked the stick up and looked at the man, could feel how their eyebrow was cocked at him. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea to be around me right now. Imagine I’m just gonna go pass out and try to forget this night happened.” As Neena started to walk away, however, they were surprised when Felix hurried over and grabbed the hand not holding onto the stick. 

“Whoa, hey, it’s fine, what’re you leaving right  _ now _ for?” When Neena looked at him, about to fell Felix to fuck off, he said, “I didn’t get a chance to say anything to that hermit yet or anything.” As Neena felt their heart sinking into their chest anew at the mention of what they had just discovered, Felix, seeming to see something in their eyes, blinked softly and asked, “What is it?”

The feel of the impressionable young man’s hand on their shoulder was like a switch that turned off their anger. Just like with ADA so many weeks ago, Neena felt the sensation, even if only for a short amount of time, like they weren’t so alone. Already sure that they were about to just regret it, Neena sagged under the comforting weight of their crew member’s hand on their arm. Turning to look into the young man’s eyes, Neena said, “Yeah, there’s a problem with that.”

* * *

Opening the door, Neena beckoned for Felix Millstone to go into the shack, leaning against the doorway to the empty house as they watched the boy walk in. He stopped a few steps in before he turned, looked at Neena, his eyes wide.

“What the—what’s going on here?”

Neena shrugged, felt a sardonic smile starting on their mouth. “I guess she packed up her bags and left.” A thought occurred to them, odd though it seemed to be. “How the  _ hell _ did you sneak up on me?”

“That hermit, she did show me a secret shortcut to the pad.” Felix let out a nervous chuckle, scratching at the back of his neck. “Where could she have gone?”

Neena scoffed, walking into the house. “How should I know? She got what she wanted, then bailed before I could come back here and give her a piece of my fucking mind.”

Of course Neena should have known that this was just inviting trouble. Sure enough, Felix cocked his head to the side slightly and asked the obvious question. “What happened?”

Neena feigned dismissal, turning away to walk further into the first room, relieved to be putting some distance between them. “I didn’t think she’d ever leave here. I mean—what if I have a question, about this  _ transcendent _ experience they set us off on that changed Max forever?” They turned to look at Felix finally.

The man shrugged. “I don’t know if whatever it was that made Max the way he is now was anything  _ bad _ . And it’s not just him that changed.”

Neena scoffed. “What’re you talking about? Same old me as always.”

Felix made a pained expression. “Right. But, hey, outta curiosity, what happened to you two in there?” Before Neena could lie, he interrupted, saying, “I get it, if it’s personal, you don’t want none of the others knowing, but she said that you guys—that you’d tell me. And I mean, I was there, I was almost there in the room with you, until she made me walk back with her.” He threw his arms out, an impatient look on his face. “I still feel like I missed out on something. And neither of you has talked about it at all.”

Neena rolled their eyes, hoping that they looked as innocuous as they possibly could. “Come on, I think I’m actually starting to get sleepy—”

About to leave, Felix surprised them when he asked, “Were you guys—I mean, I didn’t want to think anything, but it was Ellie who brought it up first. Did you guys go into that room and f….” He struggled to say the word, his face again growing a bright red. “Did you guys have… intercourse?”  _ Intercourse _ sounded, from his mouth, as if it were a foreign word.

Neena was honestly so surprised by the question that they could only stare in blank-eyed horror at the man who was supposed to be naive. Thankfully, the avoidance came out of them as easily as breath. “Where’d you get that idea?”

To their horror, Felix had not meant it as a question, but rather as a statement. “Not much at first. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. But you two have been acting strange since you spent an entire day together. And sometimes you guys touch. Like, an awful lot. And you look at each other, like people in aetherwave stories.”

“Yeah, well, that... doesn’t prove anything.”

Felix looked at first like he might relent, but instead he said, “Come on, you can probably trick Parvati, but I’m not  _ that _ dumb. And honestly, I’m happy for the both of you—wish you guys’d quit trying to act like no one can see what you’re doing—but I feel like I haven’t been able to _ talk _ to you since that night.”

Neena stared at the young man, realized that they understood the vulnerability in his eyes, the pleading. It was so sincere that Neena had to look away, at a blank wall in the empty shack. “I don’t think you’d like me so much if you knew what I was really like…”

He rose his voice, sounding like he was somewhere between proud and angry. “Neena, I’m more than your crewmate; I’m your  _ friend.  _ I—I want you to know, before you came on Groundbreaker, I couldn’t have been that far off from getting put in prison for a long time, or ending up like Gunnar. And it’s not just me. We all look up to you.” He bit out a laugh, and Neena realized that his eyes were shining with unshed tears. “Even the… drunk or A.I members.”

Neena realized that they wanted to argue with him. What the hell did any of these people know about them, after all? All they had to offer, when everything was laid out, was a ship that they had stolen.

If fate had been kinder to everyone involved—or if Phinneus Welles had been able to pick his hero out better—then they might have been led by someone smarter, stronger, better at this shit. Who didn’t run away from their feelings as soon as they became overwhelming. Instead, all they had was a cowardly, cynical asshole.

But they were what  _ The Hope _ colonists had. 

And, looking at the man who looked like he was close to begging for them to come back, accept their fate, Neena knew that to the people aboard  _ The Unreliable,  _ they  _ were _ the only option. 

Neena groaned and walked past Felix, ignoring the dismayed cry he made as they stalked down the hall, into the bathroom. Ignoring the man, Neena used the toilet, not realizing how full their bladder was until they started, had only meant it as an excuse for a moment to think to themselves. As they stood up, about to flush, they heard the tentative knock on the bathroom door. Hesitating, their immediate instinct to be to yell at the man to leave them alone, instead they called out, “I’ll be out in a second, alright. There’s not a window or anything in here for me to get out of.”

Once out, they realized that Felix wasn’t waiting right outside, as they had expected. A quick glance into the other room—the place where that four-poster bed and damned incense burner had been—showed that Felix was leaning next to the faux window. Looking right at them with a slight quirk up of his lips, in what looked like a smile, if not for the frank vulnerability in his eyes.

As Neena entered the room, he said, “You know, all of us like to say that we never got a chance out here. But you—you never had a shot at a new life. Least, one you could choose.”

Neena couldn’t help it. They laughed. “Kid, what the hell else would you call what I’ve been doing? Everything I’ve done, it’s been my choice.” Watching, as Felix opened his mouth, perhaps to refute them, Neena interrupted. “I listen to you guys, when I feel like it, but I could have… fucked off back on Edgewater. Hell, once I reached your old home, I could have kept on selling Welles down the river. I didn’t have to take  _ any _ of you aboard; but I get the feeling you wouldn’t have taken no for an answer, anyway, would you?” Felix looked embarrassed, but that tease of a smile started to grow on his mouth. “That’s why I like you. Why I like all of you. Everyone back on Earth was too damn broken down to do anything. This system; it wasn’t what I expected, but it pulses with energy. And you guys just keep clinging on for dear life like it’s a drug, fighting anything that tells you what you’re supposed to do. What you’re supposed to be.”

Felix finally blinked, the whole time that Neena had been talking he had been staring at them. Finally, he said, “So… I take that as you’re going to come back to the ship?”

Neena wanted to tell him that that was never in question, but instead they ducked their head, trying to hide a grin that wanted to spread. “Can I get something off my chest real quick?” And before Felix could again say anything, they added, “Not planning on coming onto you. Or threatening you with a tossball stick again.” When Felix nodded, Neena did what they had promised themselves they would not do, with what felt like only the memories of the man who had seen the truth already for himself and a clever Gladys, letting them feel strong enough to say it. “I wasn’t some two-bit drifter, or a custodian before I came aboard  _ The Hope _ . I was on the run.”

Felix’s eyes lit up, and the smile that had appeared earlier now re-appeared. “Ooh, a  _ fugitive _ ? You were a fugitive on Earth, came to the Halcyon system to run from the police?”

Neena quirked their eyebrow at him, wished that this guy wasn’t as obsessed with aetherwave trash serials, could see in how excited he was that he was drinking this in eagerly. Instead they doubled down on this kid’s reaction, anticipated how he’d react eagerly. “Oh, much, much worse.”

Felix walked away from the wall, mouth hanging open, eyes bright with excitement. “Were you a gangster? A bank robber? A mercenary? No, no—a corporate fixer? No; wait! You—” he hesitated, barely able to conceal his eagerness. “Were you an assassin?”

Neena tried to keep a straight face. Then they burst out laughing, trying to hide it unsuccessfully behind their hand. They ended up half-bent over, trying as hard as they could to suppress their laughter. When they finished, they found Felix, trying to look angry at Neena, his arms crossed over his chest. 

Sucking in the rest of the gale of laughter, Neena said, “Sorry… you just… your face, right now…” They realized that the laughter they had been trying to suppress couldn’t be fought off and they snorted out another one before they sighed. They didn’t realize how tense they were before; they felt much,  _ much _ better.

Felix stomped his foot, trying, unsuccessfully in that late twentieth-century boy band member way of his, to look convincingly aggressive. “ _ Damn  _ it, it’s not funny! If you say you were, “on the run”, then what do you—”

Neena said it, interrupting before they lost their nerve. “I was the rightful heir to the Urraca Union, which merged and became Spacer’s Choice, sometime while I was on ice.”

Yeah, the look on his face was glorious, just as terrifying and gut-wrenching as it was to them to see.

And what he said next fed into the fear that Neena had been feeling all along. “You—wait, that would mean—are you Esperanza Urraca?”

Neena scratched at the side of their face, suppressing the need to wince. “That’s what Mother named me, m’yeah.”

As much as they could sense already how the walk back to the ship would be characterized by Felix hammering them for stories about their old life, probing and begging for answers to questions that Neena had once dreaded more than anything answering, it was the first question he asked that made Neena realize that everything was, strangely, going to be alright.

“Can we go tell Martin Callahan?”

Neena at first didn’t know what the hell he was asking, then they couldn’t figure out who he was talking about. “Martin?”

Felix rolled his eyes and smiled broadly, giddiness rising in his voice. “The Spacer’s Choice vendor, back on Groundbreaker.”

The immediate image that came to mind, when they remembered who the man was, was that big stupid Moonman helmet. And the second thing to come to mind: what if they told Martin that, as the heir to a large part of Spacer’s Choice, that he was contractually obligated to strip, finishing with the helmet, for their pleasure?

It wasn’t as if the thought hadn’t already occurred to them, to find a way to get the depressed Spacer’s Choice vendor naked, given how strange Neena’s tastes ran. Mostly they were curious to see what a complete, broken shill looked like without his clothes on. But Neena just managed to shake the thought out of their head before the man excitedly rattled off more opportunities. Strangely, the whole thing felt therapeutic, freeing.

“Oh! I bet—” he snapped his finger. “Junlei, she’d lose her mind, find out that I was scouted by the lost heir of the Spacer’s Choice fortune—”

Neena held their hands out in front of them, wanting to stop the train of crazy that Felix was taking them on. “Whoa, I’m not worth anything anymore. Even if I wanted to run a scam on it like Ellie, they must have contingencies on me even seeing a dime or anything, like a ton of thick legalise to stop me from ever trying to claim anything—”

But the boy was already gone. “Adelaide—no, wait, Udom, that  _ asshole _ , I wonder how he’d treat us, knowing that our Captain is the lost heir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's update brought to you buy Animal Crossing. Or, you know, whatever the opposite of a promotion is. Anti-promotion, if the sheer amount of time I've spent in it is and not working on something. Oh, and Stardew Valley is sure to come as well, playing multiplayer with it. Egh. That and my damn original manuscript. Between these categorically soft games, I haven't even finished some story games and I haven't started up Final Fantasy 7 (the remake). Oh, sweet Satan, have you guys seen the mess that is what Square Enix have DONE to Trials of Mana? The little baby loli in that still haunts me, uwu
> 
> What, this isn't the area for bitching and general droning? Eh.
> 
> Hope you've left a kudos if you've read this far (I mean... you have. Right? Right?) and if you want to know when I update in general, subscribe to, well, me, and if you just want to know when I update next Monday, subscribe to the story. Ought to go without saying, but it's not just me, people who make something out of passion are just getting the feedback of their audience as anything back... well, aside from the practice. And the joy of putting more smut out into the world.
> 
> Oh, yeah, it is drama time in this story, isn't it? Does it work; this is a more lowkey story, in spite of the insanity of the story world of the game, and it is interesting for me to focus so heavily on a relationship for this length of a story. *Self-doubt and skepticism reaches it apex*
> 
> Oh, yay, sounds like some neighbors are arguing, what joy I feel in my soul.
> 
> \---k.


	20. 19. Queen Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If the Captain is uncomfortable with intimacy, then what kind of a friend do they make?

The news got spread around the ship. It was hard to be surprised by it; honestly, telling the man was a way of making sure that they just let this secret, a final barrier between them and their crew, become outed. 

Neena had had enough of all of their damn secrets. The problem they were trying to still solve, with one man in particular, was already more than enough stress to keep inside of them than they could handle, if their freak out on Scylla was any indication of their mental state. 

And once Parvati accidentally called Neena “Esperanza”, followed up with Ellie sidling up to them while Neena was busy cleaning their guns and said, “So I heard that I’m not the only person on this ship running away from a rich family”, Neena knew that it was the end of them being just Neena Castillo, person of mystery. And ex-icicle.

Still, annoyed at the woman Neena snapped at her, “Your family would be considered destitute compared to my monster of a Mother’s fortune. I didn’t so much  _ run away _ as escape from Alcatraz.” When Ellie could only scoff, a defensive look on her face Neena made a fresh escape, headed up to the motherbrain of the ship to skulk in the red darkness until they could no longer regret their obvious bad decision to tell anyone about who they were born as.

The Captain almost collapsed across the core panel, letting out a moan that they had been suppressing for what felt like far too long. Neena had let their headrest on the overwarm panel display when they heard the personality attached to their ship speak out from the speakers in the corners of the ceiling.

“It looks like you need some time to yourself, but I wanted to make sure that you weren’t thinking of pulling the core out. Because that is what it almost certainly looks like you’re about to do.”

Neena slouched back up, letting out a snort as they brushed a stray mess of their hair back behind one of their ears. “No, I would have the decency to  _ tell you  _ before I pulled your heart out.” A thought, something that had haunted them the moment they had gained control of this ship, occurred to them anew as they asked, “Why did you need me to get this core in the first place? How in the hell did the original Captain Hawthorne even _ get _ there without a core?”

“Funny you should ask. The man, while being someone I quite enjoyed during his tenure as the sole crew member aboard this ship for a number of years, was quite the paranoid Captain. He made it a habit to carry my core with him whenever he left. I like to think that it was a way of keeping me in his mind, but I believe the actual reason was that he didn’t want someone coming onto the ship and stealing me from him. Like you did. So it might not have been a good idea in the long run. And I want to add, although I do not feel anything akin to pain, that I would say I do feel uncomfortable with the idea of having my core pulled out like Captain Hawthorne once did. Repeatedly.” 

Neena backed away from the panel, hands extended in a show of not being about to pull her core out. They were unable to resist biting out, “Are you telling me that if I had just shoved the damn pod that landed on him off that I could have had a core without having to bother with Edgewater in the first place?”

A strange thought; going through the Halcyon system, sans either of the two that had come from that cannery of a town. 

About to press the A.I, Neena was made aware of the new person in the engine room when she cried out, “Hey, hope I’m not interrupting nothing!”   


Neena turned, looked at Nyoka as she stood in the doorway, a grin on her face. They couldn’t get the energy to glare at the woman, so all they said was, “What is it?”

Nyoka raised her gloved hands out in mock surrender. “Hey. don’t mind me, I just came to ask if the rumor’s true.”

Neena buried their face in their hands. “What, wanted to know if I have more money than what I say I do? What is it?”

When Nyoka laughed Neena realized that she sounded far less drunk than she normally did. “You got any money stashed away somewhere?” When Neena rose their head out of their hands and glared at them, she laughed again. “Alright, we already get more than enough booze and food than I could eat just from the places we go through. Take a joke,” she rose her hands, motioning in a downward movement. “already feel like we don’t drink or—or—hang out anymore.” A surprising look of concern made her eyes brighten. “All you do is hang out with that dumbass stick in the mud, then I learn you went and told Felix this... big secret of yours.” She flopped her hands in despair. “The hell, thought we were drinking and shooting buddies?”

Neena sighed. Shame and a fresh awareness of how they had been acting felt like a bucket of water had been thrown on them. “Look, I’m sorry we haven’t been hanging out.”

The bounty hunter shook her head, letting out an annoyed growl. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some family member you’ve been ghosting. Just… agree to have a drink with me, okay? Shit, it’s hard enough to try to keep the party side of this ship alive with just me and Ellie. And that woman tries too damn hard with her  _ fancy fucking drinks. _ ”

That made Neena laugh. And, in light of the day they had been having, they walked over to Nyoka and patted her on the shoulder and said, “Well, why wait?”

Nyoka grinned at her, eyelids lifted, wide. “That’s what I like to  _ hear _ .”

* * *

Nyoka and Neena got started with Zero Gee then moved on to vodka. By the time Neena was standing on the table, trying to sing a song from the early part of the century to someone who had grown up on just commercial jingles, some wine had been added to the mix. Trying to sing to a song was problematic, given the fact that Neena did not exactly remember the lyrics. Or had any vocal skills to speak of when sober. All they ended up doing was drunkenly mumbling along to the general beat that only they could hear in their head. Much to the enjoyment of their rekindled friend.

Nyoka laughed as Neena wound down, half-burying her face in her hand. “What—the—fuck—was….  _ that _ ?”

Neena felt their face grow red, whether it was from all of the booze that they had started to not be used to taking in so much of, or due to embarrassment. “Come on,  _ that’s _ a good tune! I mean, I butchered it, but that song meant the world to me when I was younger.” They drew their hands up, said, “It—it spoke to me, like I wasn’t so alone…”

Nyoka looked up at them, then her mouth drew wide as she let out a peal of laughter, rocking back in her chair. “You’re  _ crying _ !”

Neena clenched their fists and glared at the woman. “I’m not—” they reached up, realized that their face was wet with tears.

Nyoka pointed at the Captain, almost crying as she continued to laugh. “Here I thought you were a stone-cold badass, but you’re crying over some dumb song.” She broke with another fresh laugh, grabbing onto her chest as she did.

Neena stared at the woman, overcome with the desire to show this woman just how important the song they had horribly mutilated was. They flung their arms out, a movement that they had intended to be sweeping, grand, but instead came off as ridiculous, flapping. They could hear the whining in their voice as they said, “You don’t understand. None of your commercial jingles… they don’t have the—the breadth, the… the charm…” When Nyoka only kept staring at Neena through a partial mask of her hair, messed up as she started to bray out laughing, Neena felt their frustration rise up. “ _ Look _ , people used to make music because it felt  _ good _ to do it. Or—or they wanted people to feel something, like angry, or horny, or—”

Nyoka seemed to have gotten ahold of herself as she cut Neena off. “Hey, hey, I get it, get it. Only, I have no fucking clue what you’re trying to sing, or what it’s supposed to sound like.” She reached over, patting her friend on the arm.

Neena half-slunk over, watching as Nyoka got up from her chair and walk away before they called out, “Hey, where’re  _ you _ going?”

She waved dismissively at Neena, said, “I need to seriously contemplate the wall next to my bed for a few hours. Wake me up when it’s time to go raise hell on a Mantiqueen.”

Neena watched as their drinking buddy walked away. Realized that they had never felt as old as they felt at that moment; too damn close to a century past their expiration date, drunk and alone, only ever used to a life of running from towns and jobs before either could leave too much of an impression on them. Might have, after all, made Neena want to stick around. 

Sighing, they leaned back in their chair, throwing their head back and closing their eyes. This was  _ exactly _ why they didn’t get drunk alone. The maudlin thoughts had a nasty habit of coming to the surface without some distraction or company. As did the creeping instinct, to shove enough money to help make a break for it into a pocket and run as fast as they could away.

They must not have been sitting in that position for very long before they heard his voice, coming from above them. “You certainly appear as though you’re enjoying yourself.”

Surprised that he had been able to sneak up on them, even if they were too mired in their own thoughts to hear him, Neena tried to seem calm as they looked up at the face of the man who was staring down at them. 

Max was smirking, his slightly uneven eyes half shut, but with more than enough of his devilish green irises glimmering down at them to let Neena know that this wasn’t a fantasy that their lonesome, drunk ass had conjured. They could even smell him; clean, that always present, lightly applied cologne coming off of his skin.

Blame it on the booze or from the light boost of adrenaline, but Neena did what they had wanted to do, just had been too cowardly to actually do while sober. Reaching up, Neena grabbed onto the back of his head, forced Max DeSoto down to their mouth, kissing him, relishing the way the textured top of his tongue slid against their own.

Their whole body was awake, like Max had turned their grey sadness into a bright horizon of feeling, of being. Moaning into his mouth, Neena felt their fingers playing in his hair, the soft, clean weight tickling the webbing between their fingers, intermingling with the sensory joy of the taste of his mouth.

It was Max who moved away this time, with a soft beat of a chuckle growing in the back of his throat. “Is  _ that _ how we’re saying hello now?”

Neena’s hand felt bereft of the sensation of his hair, their mouth felt empty without his taste, his tongue. They even liked the fact that his face scratched a bit when they touched from where the man had not shaved that day. “Come back here—”

Max ignored their pleading, sitting down in the chair next to them that had been previously occupied by Nyoka. With a soft grunt, he turned the chair until he was facing Neena, one leg resting on his other knee. As Neena looked at him, about to beg that he come back, hold them, he said, “I would be careful, talking to me like that. I might be liable to take you up on your offer.” He said it so matter of factly, like he always said his filth to Neena.

But it wasn’t an offer, and both knew that. It was a tease or else he would have taken them to the nearest quiet, private, soundproofed spot to prove it. 

Their body throbbing with need, Neena twisted in their chair, grabbed for his strong chest. He was wearing the tasteful button up today, the one that—thank David the tailor—fit him irresistibly, made them ache to rip each of the buttons off of. A dusky purple, almost a play on his old vestments.

“Come on, you said we should—”

Max reached up, tangled his hand with theirs. “I know. And I agree. But at the moment you’re quite unable to consent to anything like that.” He turned his head, letting out a chuckle that only sounded to the ears of someone who didn’t know him any better as genuine. “And to be honest, I rather prefer the witty, dangerous Neena Castillo over the one who looks like they’re about to keel over at any moment.”

Neena moaned, wishing that they could pull their hands loose of the rough-skinned prison that his big hands made around theirs. “Come on, take me to bed, I promise I won’t let you down.”

To their dismay he cocked his eyebrow at them, gentle condescension in his eyes even as his hands started to rub Neena’s together. “I think sober Captain Neena could make that promise to me and I would believe them.”

They almost choked out a cry and said, with more of a whine in their voice than they would ever want to say it, “I was high when I rocked your world, and I  _ am _ Neena, you asshole!”

Max shushed them as he leaned in closer, finally letting their hands free. He tried to look stern but the look didn’t reach his eyes, which were cloyingly warm. “And that’s a different substance entirely, from what I can gather you’ve been applying for the past two hours, trying to match Nyoka, drink for drink. Now, are you  _ sure _ you want to be yelling like this in such a public place on the ship? The others might think we’re having a lovers’ quarrel.”

Grabbing onto his shoulder Neena pulled themselves half off the chair, envisioning that they would leap off and land in his lap. Instead they locked up, stuck, half-hunching over the man who looked up at them, a mixture of bemusement, concern, and affection on his face. 

With a growl, they said, “When did you start to care if the others found out what you do to me,  _ Vicar?” _

Instead of the reaction they were expecting, provoking anger, Max flinched, had to work hard at suppressing a laugh. The man's torso spasmed as he pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, his eyes tightly shut. When Neena angrily shook him, he pulled his hand away and took in a gasp of fresh air. His face growing red, Max blinked rapidly, his mouth spreading in a grin that was painfully appealing. “I apologize. You said that so _condescendingly_ , like it’s supposed to hurt my feelings.”

Neena, finally annoyed enough with him to go over even their lust, crossed their arms over their chest. “Yeah? So, you’re not a holy man anymore? What the hell  _ are _ you, then?”

Max opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. With a playful grin growing on his face he leaned forward, and said, in a conspiratorial whisper, “Well, to you I would say that one of the blunter but more precise terms for what I am in relation to you: is an out and out pervert.”

Neena flinched. They were too stunned by his admission, realized too late when that grin spread wide on his face that Max had gotten the reaction he had been wanting all along. Feeling annoyed on top of growing increasingly horny, Neena snapped, “Don’t act like you’re the experienced one here. If you were such a—big man—you’d have made good on some of your threats.”

To their increasing rage, the man just sat further back in his seat, a smug look resting on his face. “Again: this place is painfully public. And you’ve made it quite clear that you don’t want this aspect of our relationship to be out in the open.”

Barely suppressing the urge to swipe that look off of his face, Neena tried to sit back down, then found that they ended up instead staggering backward until they landed on their ass in the seat, hard. As soon as they regained their bearings, Neena looked up, already prepared to see Max grinning and maybe even laughing at them. When they saw him anew, instead Neena saw that he was just looking at them. Not laughing, not smiling. 

The concern and pity on his face was obvious.

Neena couldn’t stand to look at him so they ducked their head, pretended that there was something in their eyes that they needed to scratch. Anything to not have to look at him. 

“Fine, then. How about—we can go to your room, have another one of those “counseling sessions”, then.”

He was quiet for so long that Neena looked up at him, saw the wry upturn of his lips. Knew that there was no way that they were going to be able to sleep with him tonight. And for some reason the thought, that they would not be able to be intimate with him, felt like too much to deal with. 

The smile on his face looked less fitting as he said, “Well, if you want to be alone with me, it might be a good idea to get out of the open.” Max stood up, and when he looked at Neena the soft pity in his eyes had disappeared. “Need some help?”

Neena sighed, ignoring the hand that he had extended to them as they placed their hand on the arm rests of their chair and stood up. “I can walk by myself, thanks.”

Of course halfway down the hallway, Neena regretted snapping at him and before his room’s door closed behind them, they wanted to apologize. As they turned, looked at Max, they felt their thoughts screech to a halt as they watched—witnessed—as Max took off his thin jacket, hanging it in his closet, leaving him in his tucked in, sinfully well-fitted dress shirt.

As Max turned to look back at them, some of that earlier cheer returned to him as he smiled, some brightness lighting up his eyes. “What are you looking at me like that for, Captain Castillo?”

Neena shrugged, hoping that it could erase some of the hunger that he must have seen on their face. “Like you said: I’m just drunk.” They sniffed, felt some of the earlier angst that had not been able to burn free with the alcohol return. "Or, you know, Esperanza Urraca."  


Some days Neena missed the consummate stick in the mud, constantly stumped and befuddled, holy man that they had picked up. He had been much easier to feel like they could understand, guess what his next move was going to be. 

Max ducked his head, a look on his face that suggested that he knew more about them than Neena would have been comfortable with resting on his face. He motioned to his chair. “Take a seat.”

And, then again, Neena wished that they could just experience what it had been like only two days ago, when they had been fucked on top of the very table that they were taking a seat next to. Instead, they watched as Max DeSoto walked past them and took a seat on the edge of his bed and they turned in their chair, half facing the man whose room they were in. Wondering what the hell they were supposed to do now with this man.  


Max sat with his legs slightly parted, resting his elbows on his spread knees. Green eyes probed, gently, at Neena, as though prompting them to start talking. If they didn't know better, they may have thought that this man was and had always been a genuine counselor. Mind you, a counselor who obviously had a hobby of playing tossball. 

When Neena didn’t begin to speak, he leaned further back on the bed, his hand tangled in his hair until he lowered it. “So, I don’t know if I actually want to talk about it right now—I mean, I  _ do _ want to talk about it, but I don’t know if I should wait, until you’re clean.”

_ Clean _ . As in, not struggling to stop from drifting off into warm or cold thoughts at a bare whim. Or be able to sit without leaning to one side, like a tree in a high wind.  Still, Neena, belligerent from alcohol and from having to try to cope with feelings that they didn’t know how to deal with—or, really, even if they wanted to even think about—said, “What is it? How I outed myself for being the long lost heiress to a dead company?”

Max pursed his lips and nodded his head thoughtfully. “Well, there’s that. But I was talking specifically about the elephant in the room.”

Neena leaned back until they were sitting up straight, arms crossed over their chest. “And what elephant is that?”

Max hesitated, then he ran a hand over his face. He was growing an appealing shade of red, but something in his eyes read that he wasn’t blushing for a  _ fun  _ reason. “Again: I don’t know if I ought to be talking about this right now, in the state you’re in—”

Neena, fed up at his upright attitude, snapped at him, “Come on, you think I’m gonna let that go, just because I’m a little—”

Max's voice interrupted in a near-shouted, hands curled up into fists. “For fuck’s sake, you know I don’t have any experience at this, give me an Engineer-damned break!”

And just that quickly, almost satisfying to watch, the new soft side of the man had been burst through with some of that heavy darkness that lived inside of him. But to Netta, watching Max have an emotional break was like chugging coffee. Neena leaned in closer and almost shouted back at him, saying, “That makes two of us! You’ve been in my head, you know I don’t have relationships with anyone, at least, any that last _ longer than a night _ !”   


They stared at each other for a long moment, both rushing to catch up with their breath. Both knowing that the outburst had hinted at a mutual frustration, one that neither was ready to deal with, even in spite of what Max claimed to the contrary. But one that was, increasingly, proving that it wasn’t going to continue to be ignored, placated.

Max dropped his gaze, closing his eyes. He looked ashamed—Neena knew that he was proud of at least coming off as tranquil nowadays. Sometimes they thought that he didn’t really have a change in his personality; even if it was possible, they had the feeling that he had just gotten better at controlling his emotions, had learned to stop taking himself so seriously. That passion, that embroiling pit of emotion, was still there.

And in many ways, it seemed that that had gotten  _ worse _ .

Still, he reigned that outburst in, almost seeming to slam a lid on it with amazing skill. He sighed before he seemed to look at Neena anew. “I guess I just want to know: what were you doing, alone, on Scylla?”

Neena sat back again in their seat, looked into his eyes. Recognized that there was something, pleading, in them. Still they said, “I just wanted a walk, so I thought I’d go and see—”

Max cut them off, his voice soft, not unkind. “Please. I don’t know what we are—” he motioned between them. “What “this” is, but, please, don’t insult me, even just as a friend. We both know that the only thing left there is the hermit.” He hesitated, but then asked, “What did you two talk about?”   


Neena almost took joy in watching his face as they said, “Couldn’t talk about… anything. She’s gone.”

Max blinked, a once familiar almost hostility in his eyes appearing before it was subsumed by confusion. “What—what do you mean?”

“She’s gone. Packed e-e-e-verything up,” Neena mimed a ship taking off. “Left an empty shack.”

Max looked suddenly very tired, sat further back on his bed with a groan. “Something told me that she wouldn’t be sticking around for much longer.”

Neena looked at him, realizing that they felt as weary as he looked. Only they were more than a little less emotional with the addition of a night of drinking in her favor. With a barely suppressed chuckle, Neena asked, “How d’ya figure that?”

Max seemed to be staring into space above Neena’s head, then he dropped his eyes down to theirs. “Call it… a hunch.”

“But you don’t sound so happy about it, either.”

He shrugged, the movement looking infinitely more relaxed than either must have felt. “I just think that it would have been great to pick her brain. What drugs she used, why she chose to do what she did…” He trailed off, looking up at Neena with a strange meaning in his eyes. “I guess we’re just alone, in light of what happened to us.”

Neena had to look away. Christ, they could really feel the booze in their system, making it feel like they were struggling through the thoughts and emotions in their head like they were walking through a morass that wanted to drag them down. Recalling how Nyoka had limped off to her bedroom earlier, Neena felt their eyelids grow heavy.

All of a sudden, the thought of the bed, and the man whom the bed belonged to, seemed to be too irresistible to ignore. Neena was on their feet, gazing down at the man who looked up at them, concern and something warm in his eyes, their earlier conversation not so much ignored as swept off of the table with an undignified swipe.

“What—”

Neena smirked at him, relieved in their inebriated state to see that he was at their mercy for once this night. “Scooch over, I wanna lay down.”

He made a hesitant sound in the back of his throat but Max, either through being used to obeying his Captain or because he did like the idea of being near them in spite of his earlier admission that he didn’t want to give into Neena’s drunken seduction, moved further down the edge of the bed. “What are you planning?”

_ Planning?  _ Neena sat down next to him, resisting the urge to fling themselves on him, to take a good, long drag of his smell in. Instead, they let out a dramatic moan, throwing their head back. “Don’t worry, I just want to go to  _ sleep _ .” As Neena moved, awkwardly pulling the comforter on the bed up and sliding their uncooperative legs underneath it, they could hear as the deliciously mature man on the end of the bed was struggling to find words to say. As they slid their legs underneath the comforter, it seemed like Max indeed had found something to say. 

“I thought we were trying to—”

Neena waved at him dismissively, taking great joy in the outrage and surprise they saw on his face in the glance they took of him, pulling his blanket up past their chest. “Re-lax. I’m just gonna go to sleep. Unless you wanted to pretend we were married for the night...”

Max stood up, was gesticulating at them wildly, his mouth hanging open as articulation failed him once again until he said, his voice shaking with emotion, “Yeah, but it’s  _ my _ damn bed! You have your own bed!”

Neena fought to keep the smile off of their face as they fully slid under the comforter. “Yes, but it’s  _ my  _ ship. See where being uncooperative leads you to?”

“But I thought—was under the impression that you didn’t want our relationship to be broadcasted. Staying the night in here will definitely raise more than a few brows.”

Neena flung their hand towards him and as they turned their head against the pillow, they were surprised by the sudden impression—the smell—that they knew from memory belonged to the man who was trying to argue them out of his bed. Neena moaned and turned their head, growing too lethargic and weak to deny themselves the desire to smell him on his pillow. The smell of Max's hair was something they wished they could huff. When they looked over at the originator of the smell, though, the questioning, annoyed look on his face made them groan. 

Struggling to keep their eyes open when all they wanted to do was drift shut, Neena said, “After tonight, I’m having a hard time giving a fuck. And I’m not gonna…” Neena fought to find the words to speak before they gave up. “You know, I just wanna go to sleep.”

Max rested his fists too easily on his hips, but even drunk, Neena could see how the look didn’t reach his eyes. “But where am I supposed to  _ sleep _ ? In  _ your _ room?”

Neena buried their face against his pillow again, inhaled his smell. Intrigued by how it both energized them and calmed them. Mumbling against the soft, heavily scented weight, Neena said, “Bed’s big enough for both. Might have to spoon, though.”

Starting to not want to pull their head out of the pillow, Neena heard him say, “You’re being  _ very _ unreasonable, I’ll have you know.” When Neena didn’t react, he scoffed, or it might have been a pained sigh. “And what if I don’t have any intention of sleeping next to you, not after you went out on your own to speak to the hermit?”

Neena sighed, but pulled their head out of his pillow enough to say, “Fine, go sleep in my bed. You mentioned it before, just tell everyone that I passed out in your bed.” As they turned to flop back into that warm smelling pillow, they thought of something else to add. “You mentioned this being a trial run for dating you? Consider this to be a test of how good you are at being around me.” Somewhere, in the back of their mind, Neena knew that they would live to regret saying that. But at the moment, Neena would say anything while they were still conscious enough, to get him into bed. Literally or figuratively.  


And, as it turned out, it was surely too late to mount much in the way of more of a defense. Their mind was starting to warmly drift into thoughts scented with Maximillion DeSoto surrounding them. And although they would have preferred to have the man himself at their back, Neena was fast moving past the point when they would have been able to do anything about it.

As they felt the cozy darkness finally overcoming them, Neena almost jolted up when they felt the bed shift, as someone sat down on the edge. Then they felt the tap on their shoulder, which did manage to make them jolt.

Glaring at the man leaning in closer to them, Neena growled, “I said I’m staying here—”

Max’s face was hard to see with sleep so close, but as Neena focused, they could make out a light frown on his face. “Here. I have a Hangover Aid and some water. Drink this; I don’t want you rushing to the bathroom and vomiting on my floor in the night.”

Neena groaned but half-sat up, accepting the blister packet that he held out then took the proffered cut of water. As they looked up at Max’s face, they saw the genuine warmth, in spite of the mild irritation he wore like an unconvincing mask.

If Neena wasn’t drunk, they might have had the weird, fleeting thought that while Max was the type prone to irritation, it was impossible for him to be genuinely annoyed with them. Strange, as most of the people they had ever met had a distinct aversion to being in their presence for very long.  


But in their state, it was hard enough to muster up the energy to take the pill out of the pack and swallow one. As Neena drank it down, they looked meaningfully at Max, motioning to the pill pack and the glass of water. When he only nodded meaningfully back at the pills, cocking an eyebrow, Neena rolled their eyes but popped another pill out, swallowed it. Only then did the newly minted mother hen take both of the items that he had given them back. 

Laying back on the pillow Neena watched as Max turned around and left, drowsily taking in the pleasing shape of his ass before the door closed behind him. With a groan, Neena maneuvered back down, laying so that they were facing the wall. 

Something told them that he wouldn’t be returning, that he would probably take up their idea and go lay down in their bed for the rest of the night. Still, their mind, no matter how tired they felt, was filled with the thought of how it must feel to fall asleep after a long night, to feel him embracing them.

Intimacy was a pleasure that Neena had once never allowed themselves to feel on purpose, not tainted with the thought that they would need to try to find a way to cut and run, and quickly.

As they were drifting asleep, they felt something shift on the edge of the bed, were too far into the beginning of sleep with the booze weighing their mind down. Then Neena was aware of being enveloped in warmth, the comforting weight of a body against their back, the soothing exhale of a face buried in the free weight of their hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, if you don't write, it might be hard to get, but no matter how many times you go over a thing sometimes you keep finding things to fix or change. This chapter was more of a bear that I expected it to be. The good news is that whenever I go back to work on this I find myself drawn into the relationships in it, which is always a good sign, at least to me in my experience. But, wow, what I wouldn't give to not have to erase the additional spacing between paragraphs.
> 
> On a personal note I am going back to work later this week, so that means I am not going to have as much time to devote to my personal manuscript; which is fine. It's fine. I'm fine. I'm not in any way upset that I have to sneak revisions in at work--ah, fuck it, it's obvious, isn't it? 
> 
> Sorry to say but once I started revisions on my manuscript it was like letting the genie out of the bottle. I mean, writing fan fiction was like slamming a year of practice into, what, three months or so of writing and much more time to refine it, sometimes as a break in my personal project. Working on my original writing was always the goal here for me, to get the confidence back and a stronger degree of practice with it, and I have no intention of slowing down out of worry that I'll lose the story again like I did before. I might share some of the experience of excavating and cleaning my old manuscript (for the brave, you can read the outdated version on my Wattpad account on my profile, which is called *Lament of the Traitor King*) but I can express it best as feeling overwhelming; if it's not cleaning it's catergorization, and sometimes the magnitude of it is, again, if you don't have experience with working on a project for an extended period of time, astounding to look at everything and always see room for improvement.
> 
> But, I mean, this stuff saved my life and it continues to do it, wouldn't change my passion for anything or my annoying work ethic.
> 
> I'll continue to post on Monday (sure am glad I didn't break and start posting bi-weekly or else quality would have gone WAY down hill!) but I might run a LITTLE later with posting than I usually do. I hope you understand it if that does happen. We're almost halfway done with this thing being uploaded, I am grateful to those of you who have stuck around through this, at least I haven't missed a week of upload. I look forward to posting weekly, even if it is an investment of time and focus.
> 
> I want to give a shout out, which I haven't done in a while, to two people who have been there even in my grumpy, selfish moments that can last weeks on end. I am a terrible friend and a gleeful specter and I try to come to peace with that, but mordelle and Danypooh80 are much kinder and more understanding than I could ever hope to be. 
> 
> Alright, this has gone on long enough.
> 
> \---k.


	21. 20. Lust for Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Climb up the H of the Hollywood sign, yeah.  
> In these stolen moments,  
> The world is mine.  
> There's nobody here, just us together.  
> Keepin' me hot like July forever...

_ They must have fallen asleep at some point, because when Neena opened their eyes they found that they were hugging Max’s torso. Pulling their head up to look at the appealing sight of the still sleeping man, Neena’s first thought might have been that they could wake him up to have another go at him. But it wasn’t that thought that came first as they looked at the now sleeping, defrocked ship's Vicar. _

_ Something jumped in their chest, then felt like it got lodged in their throat. _

_ It was one of the most inopportune times that he could have stirred awake, as though he could sense their discord.  _

_ And the real problem was that Neena knew that he could read what was in their head. And sure enough, they could feel his astonishment. _

_ Oops. _

* * *

It was a blessing as Neena started through another day aboard  _ The Unreliable  _ that they had too much on their plate to harbor more than a vague, back burning obsession with the man that they had dreamed of. Now, unfortunately, they could remember the strange occurrence that had happened when they had fallen asleep back at the Hermit's. Learned that it wasn't just sex that could jar a memory of that incense-laden room loose in their mind. 

Good news, also, that Max had not been in bed when Neena had woken, although the warmth and smell he had left had told them that he had spent time very recently next to them.

They felt relieved at how busy things were. But as the day wore, on a moment of boredom came. And it grabbed them right by the crotch. 

Neena was sick to death of having to ignore their needs. And no one, sub-par, would do.

* * *

They had taken a job that required, as the message had said, some hiking.  _ Some Hiking _ , it would seem, meant most of the day spent doing recon for horribleness in the form of fauna or humans who wanted to kill them. Usually, they would rely on Nyoka for anything to do with the wilds of Monarch, but the woman had for once turned a chance down to run around down there. Said that even for her, these “small jobs” had grown stale.  _ Oh well, more excitement for me.  _

Along with Neena, Parvati and Max would be searching for the hoard of someone who had tried to make it out in the wilds of Monarch on their own, had supposedly left resources to spare. But once they had found the ruins of the poor schmuck’s hovel and dug out the crushed spider hole that he had made to store his valuables, they ended up coming away with far, far less than the treasure trove as had been promised. Not that Neena was really even half as irritated as they pretended; hell, at this point it was more about the thrill of adventure with people they cared about than the bits.

Just don’t tell any of their crew members that.

After the group found some questionable water to wash up in the plan was to camp out in the wilds. As Parvati went to get the big tent that they would be spending the night in ready, Neena found Max dealing with the rations that they had brought for dinner, crouched over a Quiklite Campfire. Barely suppressing the need to ride up on him and thrust their hips against his, possibly sending him falling into the campfire, Neena instead bent next to him, pretending, for the benefit of the woman who might, at any moment, return and see them, as if Neena were just asking him a question.

Instead of any chaste question that they might have ostensibly asked a member of their crew, Neena asked, “Any chance I can pull you away in the middle of the night?”

Max didn’t turn to look at them, instead seeming to be super focused on the aluminum tray of Family Style Canid Meatloaf that he had placed on the little stove. He coughed into the hollow of his elbow like any upstanding gentleman would do, then, softly, he said, “Now, Captain, would it be a good idea to focus on prurient matters, especially when we’re camped out? Where any raider could attack us in the middle of the night?”

He didn’t say  _ no _ , though. He never did say no to them while they were sober.

Neena lost their cool though, reaching over to the man hunched over, and grabbing onto one of his hands, thrusting it between their thighs. They could feel him jolt in surprise at the sudden action. Not bothering to hide the huskiness in their voice, they said, “You left me high and dry last night.”

Not to be outdone—although he did sound more ruffled than he likely wanted to sound—Max said, “Yes, you were too inebriated to make a decision—”

Neena leaned over, not letting go of his hand that they kept locked between their hungry thighs and taking a grasp of the side of his face. They took his lips, kissing him before he kept talking, any thought of Parvati seeing them forgotten about. When they pulled away, Neena, grinning, said, “I am never _ not _ in the mood, Counselor, when it comes to you.”

Maybe too much to admit to, when their heart felt oddly vulnerable, like how the exact green tint of his eyes made them feel strange and light-headed? Not that it mattered; Neena was too busy thinking with the lower half of their body to care, struggling to not pull him over to the ground next to the campfire and make good on two days worth of aggravation.

Max panted, shaking ever so slightly but deliciously. Sounding like he was trying to regain control of his voice, he said, “I might be amenable to an— _ arrangement _ , even though I think having it in a bed after our track record out of one would be more appropriate.”

Neena was about to lean over, kiss him as a mild celebration as well as a reward, when they heard Parvati calling out from beyond the tent that she had been stabilizing. Far from where, unknown to the young woman,  _ The Unreliable’s _ Captain and the ship’s counselor were deciding the details of their midnight tryst.

“Alright, the camouflage on this ought to be up and runnin’ after I swung my wrench at the rig a few times—” she stopped, and by then Neena had spun around to look at her. Too quickly, it seemed, judging by the look on the woman’s face. Parvati looked at Neena, then at Max, overwarm brown eyes wide, mouth starting to fall open. Before Neena could think of anything to say, she said, “Feels like I just interrupted somethin’, if I’m being honest.” Parvati’s eyes trailed away, her embarrassment obvious.

Max had turned around as well, had somehow managed to subtly—as subtle as anyone in their situation could—put a foot of distance between them as he spoke in that calm, the-height-of-propriety voice of his. “I wanted to ask the Captain to check on an injury of mine.”

Holy shit, was he _ joking _ ? He didn’t seriously think that that would work—

Parvati blinked and an apologetic look came over her face as she tried to awkwardly smile. “I-I—I’m awful sorry, I wasn’t tryin’ to imply nothing. I hope you’re not hurt or nothin’, I have some adreno—”

Max held his hand out, chuckled softly. “No, I’ll be just fine.” He turned, looking at his surprised co-conspirator. “Isn’t that right?”

Neena coughed into their fist, hoping that it hid their guilty blush. “A-yeah, that’s right. No pulled hamstring here.”

Parvati once more proved what her age-ism and naivete left her blind to. “Goodness, I can just imagine that as old as you are, Max, you must be more prone to injury than the rest of us. If you’re feelin’ weak, I don’t mind taking over some of your chores tonight—”

Some of old Angry Max came out with a subtle rise in inflection in his voice as he said, “Al-right, that’s enough. I’m not hurt, you don’t need to worry about me.”

It was some of Neena’s best acting, this side of the dumb pageants that so long ago their mother would force them to participate in, which allowed them to keep a straight face. Not break down in laughter. 

Parvati smiled, the look, as always, slightly nervous but utterly sincere. “Oh, that’s good to hear— _ great. _ ” She shifted, awkward, from one booted foot to the next, possibly not totally ignorant to the strange moment that she had walked in on. She cleared her throat, then nodded towards the campfire. “Dinner comin’ along nice, then?”

Both members of the guilty party spoke at the same time, blurting out that dinner was almost ready. 

The awkwardness almost made Neena decide against going through with their completely thirsty plan, of fucking their ship’s counselor in the high grass.

* * *

Four hours later, with the familiar, soft snore of Parvati penetrating the inside of the large shared tent, Neena found that they had had fitful sleep at best. Carefully, they crawled out of their sleeping bag in the near dark and looked for the shape of Maximillion DeSoto in the tent, mindful to crawl around Parvati to make sure that under no circumstances did the woman awaken.

As they looked down at the man who laid on his side, Neena thought about waking him up by peeling their pants off and planting their lower lips over his for a surprise kiss. Then they thought about the only worse thing than fucking out in the dangerous wilds; getting caught receiving fellatio from Max.

_ Hey Parvati, as you can see, this is the technique that DeSoto swears by—you ought to be taking notes for this. _

So instead, out of instinct of not wanting to wake him up and having him holler from having someone shake him, Neena clapped a hand over his mouth, felt him indeed jerk a little under their hand.  _ How erotic; waking him up like I’m kidnapping him. _

Sitting close so that they could whisper into his ear, Neena said, “Still up to fool around in the open night air?”

The question was answered in a way that Neena had not envisioned. Grabbing onto the hand that Neena had clapped over his mouth, Max took their hand on a journey down his so very warm chest, sliding their hand underneath the cover of his sleeping back. 

_ God, to be in there with him. _

He surprised them further. He forced Neena’s arm down the interior of the bag, until Neena was half-submerged under the bag, shoulder-deep. And then he placed their hand around the notable, straining weight in the front of his pants.

It was his turn to hiss something into their ear, something distinctly un-Max like. “Wondering when you’d come over here. Have not been able to think of anything else, can… damn well hardly  _ sleep _ .”

The warm smell of his sexually frustrated body almost made Neena’s mouth water. They couldn’t resist; the shared feel of him in their hand and the rest of his body pressed against their arm, the heavy need that they felt, had almost grown to believe didn’t exist in him any longer, clouded their mind. Neena turned their head, started to roughly kiss his delicious smelling neck, could hear and feel the faint, helpless motions he made as he bit back groans, rocking against their conjoined hands underneath his sleeping bag.

How Neena found the strength to let go and come out of the bag they didn’t know, but they were crawling towards the entrance to the tent, already planning how they were going to slide the tent flap open and re-seal their blissfully ignorant ship mechanic inside. As they moved through the piles they had created of their gear Neena could hear Max moving behind them, half-crawling out of his sleeping bag after them. It was juvenile; really not supposed to be their style, but it felt like the closer that Neena got to the entrance of the tent the more they anticipated the night air, the thrill of what they were about to do. And the extra, always present forbidden appeal, of _ who _ they were going to do it with.

Outside Neena heard him behind them, scraping along the ground. It was odd, feeling to Neena too much like they were creeping around, anticipating an ambush.

So much about this situation was strange.

Glancing back, Neena saw the sight of the tent disappear as they walked out of the vicinity of the camo illusion created by the generator. Then they saw the familiar shape of Max, crouched on the ground and following them. They didn’t miss the fact that he held his shotgun in his dominant hand. Or the tell-tale smirk he wore as he looked at them, illuminated by the soft moonlight.

As Max hurried, reaching their side, Neena couldn’t resist asking, “Do you ever not come prepared with a weapon, Mr. DeSoto?”   


Max shrugged, his voice in this forbidden darkness a lush softness. “You know me too well, Captain. A man of my years doesn’t live as long as he does by being imprudent.”

Neena waited till he had caught up with them then they reached over and tweaked his shoulder. “You know some people would say that constantly referring to yourself as “old” and using words like “imprudent” is not the best thing to say when you want to get laid.”

Barely missing a beat beneath the sound of what seemed like a snort of laughter, Max said, “I’m not the one who arranged this tryst, I’ll have you recall.”

They barely made it more than twenty-five feet away from the tent when Neena found their resolve worn completely thin. They turned and ducked their head close to his, pulling Max in as they kissed him. Soon, both were grabbing onto each other, Max dropping his shotgun. Both were pressed up against each other when they pulled apart, a mutual end to their desperate kissing. Panting, Neena said, “We’re far enough away from the tent, we can—”

Max silenced them with a quick kiss, on the side of their lips. As he pulled away, his soft green eyes almost bright in the darkness, Max said, “We’re a little too close to the bathroom hole we dug for me to become excited at the prospect of intimacy.”

Neena’s mouth buzzed with the lingering sensation of his kissing and their lips started to drift into a bemused, uncontrollable grin. “What’s the matter, can’t fuck me everywhere after all?”

He surprised them by shooting forward, wrapping a hand around their back and pressing the small of it so that a surprised Neena couldn’t jerk away. He ducked his head, his soft hair pressed against the point of Neena’s chin. When he latched his lips onto their neck and sucked, hard, it drew a girlish shriek from the oversensitized Neena. They didn’t duck away from him; to the contrary, Neena buried their body against his. They were, in that moment, ready to be ravished by Max. Within feet of the latrine.

Then the man pulled away, said, “Let’s move on. I think I saw a large patch of grass we can make a secluded spot in the middle of.”

Neena bit their lip, wanting to tell him to go back to what he was doing earlier. Instead, Neena just nodded, oddly pleased to see the beginnings of an impure grin starting on one side of his lips. They followed Max, too much blood pooling in the lower half of their body to be able to think coherently. 

Sure enough, Max motioned to Neena as they found some high grass. It wasn’t the first thing that Neena thought of when they envisioned schtupping Maximillion DeSoto for what felt like the thousandth time, but then again Neena had never been one to worry overmuch about doing it outside.

Both crawled through the grass to the heart of the growth, then Neena helped Max smooth down a large enough portion of the grass to create a surface to use. As Neena slipped their jacket off they looked over at him, nodding to his own coat—thankfully, not tonight, the probably quite vintage leather jacket, which could have gotten damaged by the pointy edges of the dry grass bed.

Trying to suppress the heavy ball that had formed in the back of their throat, Neena said, “Gonna need to do it on top of the coats, or else we’re going to end up with worse than rug burns before you know it.”

Max sat his shotgun down, then shrugged out of his jacket, the lines of his shoulders straining slightly underneath his shirt a beautiful sight beneath the moonlight. “By all means, let me contribute to making us a  _ fine _ bed to lay down in.”

As Neena finished smoothing the jacket down in the center of the spot they had made, they shook their head, a soft smile growing on their lips in anticipation to the joy they were undoubtedly about to experience. “I wouldn’t call it a “bed”, more a… platform.” Their fingers had gone to the buttons that went down the center of their shirt, unlatching them. Eager to begin shedding more of the clothes that unfairly unconfined them. 

Max seemed to be staring at Neena as they undid their shirt, his eyes feeling, even after they had spent so much time like this, as though his gaze were a thrilling, forbidden weight on every exposed part of skin that Neena revealed. 

Softly, Max said, “Platform makes me feel like I’m performing.” Max grabbed onto the lower portion of his shirt, yanking up, out of the waistband of his trousers, pulling up and over his head as he revealed his lean, stocky torso. As he balled his shirt up and tossed it to the side, Max looked at Neena with more surprising sobriety in his eyes than they had expected. “Am I performing for you like this?”

Neena couldn’t help it; they laughed, hoping it would cover up their awkwardness and unease. It felt like he was asking something else, something that was there, in his eyes. Looking away, hands trying to fumble with the chest wrap more than they usually did, they said, “Whatever gets you off, y’know? Nothing wrong with some fantasy and role play. If you want to envision we’re in that stupid movie and you’re the corrupt Ship Vicar on the _The_ _Hope_ and I’m that dumb asshole hero, then—”

Max leaned over to Neena, pressing a finger to their lips before he drew in closer, removing his finger as he kissed them, deeply. The taste of his mouth, his tongue, felt like a drug that they were mainlining, rendered the Captain a hungry, pliable mess as he rose his hand up in a familiar gesture, taking hold of the side of their face to kiss them even deeper. By the time he pulled away, Neena was straddling his thighs as the ship’s counselor sat on his knees, was now holding onto Neena by the small of their back.

It all felt effortless,  _ too _ effortless, in fact—

Max leaned in and made a small, gentle kiss on the lower part of Neena’s cheek, eyes half closed as a smirk that felt far less wholesome than belonged on his face fit on his mouth. “If we’re not going to take this seriously, then in light of the way you were acting last night, I’m more in the mood for another kind of game.” He ducked his head to the side, and what Neena could see of his eyes underneath his half-covered lids seemed to shine at them ominously.

It made Neena squirm on top of his thighs. Their mouth started to hang open, as if they couldn’t get enough air in their stupid lungs, and what they could was filled with the intoxicating smell of the man who seemed to be propositioning them for something more dangerous than either were used to together. 

Somehow they found the ability to speak, said, “What did you have in mind?”

Max’s face broke into a grin. Expecting him to say something, when Max instead grabbed onto either side of Neena’s hips and picked them up they started to shriek. Ignoring their flailing, he sat up, pulling their legs apart and wrapping them around his torso, grabbing onto Neena’s back and dipped them down until Neena’s shoulder blades were pressed into the lining of Max’s jacket with his hands grasped around either side of their hips. From his spot between their legs, Max looked strangely in his element, the grin taking on a deliciously ominous note.

Some of that grin disappeared as Max said, “So, are you… accustomed to having a man take control, or is that something that you would not be amenable to?”

Neena felt some of their ability to think returned to them as they realized what Max was asking. Sitting up on their arms they looked at Max and felt their own excited smile starting on their lips. “I’ve let some bend me over like a naughty disciple. But only the best.”

That grin returned in full force to Max’s face as his hands slid from Neena’s hips and caught onto the waistband of their trousers, gave Neena a yank. As Neena let out a moan that felt like it was trapped in the back of their throat, Max said, “And I get the feeling that that distinction, as auspicious as it is, is not readily granted to just anyone.”

Was it a good idea to embolden a man who seemed liable to go completely mad with newfound power? “You have to earn it, or else I’m going to spank you like the naive virgin you are.”

Max’s eyebrow quirked up, a sign that he took what they said as a challenge. Neena  _ meant _ it as a challenge, didn’t they?

They didn’t even  _ know _ anymore. Sexual near-starvation and intense emotional turmoil was turning Neena into someone they could hardly recognize in themselves. All they knew was that some probably very stupid part of them wanted to see what damage Max could do if he decided to take the role of the quietly dangerous man.

A light flickered in Max’s eyes, something that made them wonder if he was doubting this situation, or maybe himself, just like they were. 

But it disappeared in an instant as a familiar look now rested eerily well on the face of a man who claimed to have put that version of himself in the past, as the man lifted his face and sneered down at Neena. “Naive?  _ Me _ ? Look at who’s talking. You did a damn fine job ensuring that I was well acquainted with a bevy of sins of the flesh. Pretty soon it’s going to be me who’s giving  _ you _ lessons.” As Neena opened their mouth to counter, Max surprised them yet again by quickly ducking forward and bending down, pressing his lips against Neena’s in an insistent kiss before he pushed his tongue inside of their mouth. 

Neena reached up, thrusting their fingers through his soft hair, trying to kiss back as hard as he did, failing. By the time Max pulled away Neena was panting, sure of nothing other than the fact that they were wet and trembling with need. Expecting him to sit back up and go back to his usual calm, Max again surprised them when he dropped his face down to Neena’s collar, started to kiss their neck. As Neena made guttural, helpless noises, Max had started to undo the button on Neena’s trousers, was pulling it down their thighs. 

Neena’s hands flew to his shoulders, trapped between pulling him in closer and pushing him off as Max pulled their shirt up their body, slipping it up and past the trappings of Neena’s bindings. He moved smoothly and with an ease that felt like it was almost natural to him, motioning for Neena to sit up and pull their shirt off with his help. As soon as the shirt cleared their body, Max fell on them anew, hands sliding against the soft prison of their chest wrap, the rough of his palms and fingers a teasing contrast to the softness of the bindings and the fabric of the lining of his jacket beneath them. 

Neena wanted to help him take the binding off but one look at his face showed a man who had a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. He relished removing their clothes. Especially the binding and their underclothes.

Biting their lip, Neena laid out on the blanket they had made of their coats, watching as the man worked, his knowledge of unclasping their bindings at this point very intriguing. He worked the clasps loose quickly, sliding it off of Neena’s body with a gentleness that ran opposite to the drive that they saw in his eyes, the determination.

Neena could watch him all night like this, even without any clothes off. His face was framed by the night sky, the stalks of dying grass around them a prison that they were too eager prisoners of. As he bared their chest, Neena expected that the rest of their clothes would follow, along with his.

They were wrong.

Max hunched over them on his knees and, without warning, he buried his face in their overample breasts, making Neena moan partially in surprise and mostly in pleasure at the maddening sensation of his face against the swells of their tits. They didn’t have much time to realize what his plan was as the ex-Vicar moved his face, taking in the cold-budding nipple of Neena’s right tit.

“Fuck, Max,” Neena moaned, meaning it as a yell but realizing as they started to whimper that that dream was gone. He had barely done a thing to them; with them. He was just sucking on their nipples, and the sight and sensation of it being Max doing it to them was enough to push them over the edge. 

Once he got his fill of that tit, Max moved, giving Neena a look under a messy wall of his fallen hair as he moved to the other one. 

Neena ought to have been prepared, after he had already lavished attention to that one already, but the feeling of his warm, slippery mouth tightening around their nipple had Neena biting back a moan, kicking the ground with their booted heel. 

“You know I like this, don’t you?”  _ Of course he does. He’s been in my head.  _ When Max didn’t stop to answer them, sucking their nipple in, hard, as though in retaliation, Neena shrieked, could only clap a hand over their mouth to stop it too late before they snapped at him, “Always want to talk, what’s the matter, why don’t you want to talk to me  _ now _ ?”

Max continued to suck on their nipple, the pressure and suction of his lips so much that Neena almost started to moan anew. Once Neena had thrown themselves back on the temporary bed he lifted his head and, in a voice that had a soft undertone of a pant, he said, “You always used to tell me to learn when to shut the hell up. At the moment, I’m shutting the fuck up, if you would let me get back to the matter at hand.” 

_ Christ, _ he sounded like he was too calm in this mood, in his element.  _ In his element _ , while the Captain of the ship that he rode aboard and was supposed to obey was a writhing, moaning mess.

But perhaps for Neena’s good he finally did stop. As the Captain shook their head, reaching a hand up to grasp at the wet, chilling bud of the nipple that Max had just finished tormenting, he sat on his knees on top of Neena’s hips. Seemed to wait until Neena looked up at him until he reached down and dug his fingers underneath the opened waistband of their trousers.

Max’s smirk was only a further extension of how shockingly natural he looked, crouched over them. “I don’t think it’s an altogether good idea to be out here all night.”

Neena licked their suddenly far too dry lips, hands attempting to futilely cover their cold breasts in the open night air and with what felt like the weight of Max’s eyes on them. Still, what they said was sincere, revealing too much the eagerness that surged through them. “Then… we’d better get to it, then.”

The smirk on Max’s darkened face grew into a full-blown grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Chapter summary is the opening lyrics to Iggy Pop's... well, I think you know)
> 
> It is hard to keep my eyes open right now. It is also 1 PM at the moment. The struggle is real, my dreamlets. 
> 
> Progress feels slow, now that I am in the middle of making new, connective scenes in my OW. I like the new system I have set up, it really looks like something professional and "fun", in a weird sense of the term. But it does take some of the fun out of working, just being able to move from scene to scene. It's crazy after having written three multi-chapter fan fics in completely different fandoms, but it feels daunting, sometimes impossible to make new scenes in my first manuscript. I don't know, feels a bit like I'm touching this thing that other people have already digested and have made a part of themselves as I consider making new scenes and changing the contexts of scenes I've already made, more than I did up to now. It's already kind of painful, to read through this chapter by chapter and see things that need cleaned up, you have no idea how it feels to read something I plan to try to share one day and, you know, make money off of. 
> 
> Fuck, I am tired. OH--before I forget, I have some very active readers, people who have commented on my chapters. THANK YOU FOR THAT! Honestly, hearing about what people love about reading this is really helpful, both with as I go forward with edits on this as well as with my own work in the future. It means a lot to hear from you guys. Good luck with your series, pumpkinperson, I love writing work especially for people who also write.
> 
> \---k.


	22. 21. Stray Cat Strut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get into the car,  
> We'll be the passenger.  
> We'll ride through the city tonight.  
> See the city's ripped backsides.  
> We'll see the bright and hollow sky.  
> We'll see the stars that shine so bright;  
> The sky was made for us tonight...

For the previous twenty minutes Neena actually hadn’t been doing anything (at least, sex-related) in the quiet world that existed inside of the high grass with the ex-Vicar. The little haven was colored with the smell of each other’s bodies and the sight of the nude Maximillion DeSoto as Neena splayed out on the ground, as well as the feel of him, with Neena resting on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Both had been laying on the bed they had made of their jackets for lack of wanting to do anything hasty like leave this spot where they had been staring up at the stars.  _ The Unreliable _ ’s Captain and Counselor were trying to find the willpower to get up, put their clothes back on and not fall asleep there in the open air with the heat leftover from the sex they had had to keep warm.

Max had been talking in a soft whisper about the night sky back at the damned farm factory he had been born in, how it at least always had a clear view of the stars at night, much more than the factory town of Edgewater had allowed one to see through all of its factory smog. The stars of the Halcyon System, which seemed to all be there with them in this wild frontier of land, winked down as though co-conspirators along with the two outlaws in more sense of the word than either might have liked to admit. As Neena listened to the normally closed-off man talk about things in the soft sanctuary of the nest provided by their strewn clothes, they started to think that their fight with sleep was becoming a losing one. That they might end up sleeping here, on top of this man that they had never envisioned wanting anything more than a strange one night stand with.

As if challenging that, Neena heard the noise, of two voices talking somewhere, beyond the safety of the high grass. 

“—said they saw ‘em come this way. Bullets for bits, they’re using a camo and camping out here. Ain’t nobody seen anybody come outta the valley for hours, an’ I saw smoke this a’ways before sundown...”

Neena, now fully awake, heard as the group had moved away and then couldn’t make out what they were saying as they left. They looked down, saw that based on how wide Max’s eyes were that he knew what trouble both had just found themselves in. Or. more appropriately, that their ship’s mechanic was in trouble. Neither needed to say anything, knew exactly what needed done.

Even for who they were over seventy years ago Neena had a hard time believing that they would have ever gone running at a gang or group of raiders with nothing at the ready. Literally wearing nothing. At least they weren’t alone in this unique predicament; from behind them they could hear as the man they had fallen into a doze on earlier followed on his knees. A quick glance, once, to confirm that he had remembered to bring his shotgun, did show Neena that he was as nude as they were, but with a significant upgrade.

Any other time, where panic wasn’t choking at the back of their throat, Neena would have found the situation laughable. But this was far from funny. In fact, even the sight of the nude Max carrying his favorite firearm only made Neena feel like they were in a nightmare.

And nightmares had a habit of ending unhappily.

As they hurried, out of the high grass and, in spite of the agonizing burn that crawling on dirt did to their bare knees, they tried, desperately, to catch up to the group of people that they had overheard. The cold of Monarch’s night air hit them everywhere, biting until it felt like Neena’s body was fully awakened, roused from the sensual stupor they had been drugged with. In spite of their rush, by the time they caught up with the group the raiders had found the camp. The camp that they and Max ought to have been sleeping in, ready to defend in this situation. Now with Parvati alone in, and likely still asleep—

They were on their feet as they ran, any thought of how vulnerable they were firmly in the back of Neena’s mind amidst a wave of overwhelming fear, anger at the raiders who had found the camp, and more than enough rage at themselves for their own stupidity to drown in. They didn’t even think of the man who might have been as nude as they were but at least had a weapon, a bull as they charged without thought or care of their own safety.

Neena saw the first piece of clothing that was on a moving body in the shadowy darkness surrounding what was supposed to look like a big boulder. They were thrown out of the cyclone that had engulfed their thoughts as they heard a familiar shout coming from the vicinity of the tent. 

“Comin’ at you!”, Neena heard Parvati holler. Then Neena heard the sound of her sledgehammer striking something with a resounding sizzle from her modified beast of a weapon, followed with the cry of someone a moment before the raider went flying past the shape of the now revealed tent. Neena was stunned for a brief moment before, nude or not, they led the charge with an equally vulnerable Max following at the rear. 

Everything felt ludicrous and horrible all at once as Neena shouted out, “We have you surrounded!” 

Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as they heard a voice call out, “I thought you said they was the only ones out here!”

Someone else yelled out, protesting, as another raider came around the tent. Even in the vague darkness Neena could see the way the raider’s eyes bugged out of his head as he beheld a nude female body, flanked by an equally as nude man brandishing a shotgun. Then he disappeared as Max took the shot, hitting the man in the shoulder, sending him flying backward.

And Neena could hear as the sound of their life changing completely came with the once innocuous sound of Parvati, who had walked around the raider, her sledgehammer at the ready, saying, in a low, shocked voice, “Is this… some kinda tactical advantage?”

Neena was too slow in answering, as Max, now standing at their side, answered, “Well, not precisely.”

* * *

“You guys snuck off in the middle of the night to do— _ what _ ?”

Neena sat in a chair at the table in the dining room/kitchen, their arms folded over their now long since covered torso. They glared up at Ellie, who was sitting back against the edge of the table in  _ The Unreliable _ , her own arms folded over her chest.

It was a real war of wills with neither stubborn, strong people willing to secede. Max, meanwhile, now, sadly, fully clothed, sat next to Neena. His body language was nothing but, infuriatingly, relaxed, where Neena could only imagine that they looked like a goddamn mess. He might as well have been barely a part of this conversation and had given off the air of accepting whatever was going to be decided by Neena. 

This whole ugly, dumb problem that Neena had made for the whole crew was their war to fight.

They knew better. That was the part that stung the most; Neena had _ known _ better, ought to have been in control of this. Not that they were going to let any member of their crew tell them that. Least of all the equally as hard-headed Ellie, who did not need another reason to believe that her Captain was a raving imbecile.

So instead of apologizing, Neena lifted their chin at her and said, “If I wanted to hear someone chastise me about my personal life I would have found a priest to lecture me.”

Neena realized the mistake they had said too late. Ellie snapped back, “Yeah, problem with that is you were already  _ busy  _ doing a whole lot of sinning with our ship’s supposed religious counsel.”

And for what felt like the first time since this ordeal had started, Max spoke. “Now, I thought I’ve already told everyone that I no longer consider myself to be a practitioner of Scientism, let alone a Vicar of it. Nothing I do is a reflection on that system of belief.” 

If Neena wasn’t focused on the ship’s sawbones, Neena might have harassed Max for his odd choice in priorities for what misconceptions he deemed as worthwhile to correct. Instead, adding more to their deep annoyance with these proceedings, Neena said, in unison with Ellie, “No one asked you!”

As Neena and Ellie shared a look of mutual disdain, one of the other members of the crew (who had been assembled to, supposedly, sit in on an emergency crew meeting) Felix, said, “I don’t know if I want to _ be _ here for this. This seems... awful personal.” He ducked his head slightly, eyes raising to look at Neena as if in apology.

Ellie turned her head, looked at the young man before she erupted in a fast, irritated patter. “Oh, trust me alleycat, I had no desire to bring this up, but now we’re all forced to, to talk about someone’s sex life, and I want a certain  _ someones _ to appreciate the fact that at this point I’ve turned a blind eye to so much bullshit and fakery that it truly does boggle the mind, that I had no intention of getting involved, but  _ so fucking help me—” _

Neena’s voice rose more than they anticipated as they said, “So what’s stopping you now? Mind your own business, Ellie!”

Nyoka spoke up, half-rising out of her chair as she said, “El, I think they’re right. No one’s sex life is anybody’s business but their own. Monarch sensibilities and all that.”

Ellie turned, looked at her Captain, her eyes squinted in dismissive anger. In a low voice she said, “Oh, but  _ now _ it is my business. It’s everyone’s fucking business, Princess Urraca, like that fucking lie that is your name.” She grabbed onto the lapel of her jacket, mock tugging it as she glared at Neena with unsuppressed displeasure. “Thought we were buddies. You go and open up to the old stick in the mud before me, then you go and endanger the kid.”

Neena was about to get into a shouting match with the ship’s sawbones when the sole voice of reason, personified by Max DeSoto, spoke up from where he was sitting next to the Captain. “I can only speak for myself, but I don’t plan on endangering anyone else on this crew, again, like that.” When Ellie opened her mouth to speak he added, “And I  _ understand _ that the emotions are raw right now, but perhaps it would not be imprudent to wait to have this conversation until everyone has cooled down a bit.”

In spite of any feelings they may have had for him in light of his complacency thus far, Neena realized that the man was right. There was nothing to be gained by yelling at this woman, who already knew them too well to be intimidated by them. And besides; she might have said it with no small amount of irony, but Neena had come to see them as being friends with the woman. 

And it might be more than a bit hard to maintain a relationship with someone you had gotten into a screaming match with.

So, with the emotional guidance of the man who had gotten them into this trouble to begin with, Neena looked up at Ellie and, before they could change their mind, said, “No one needs to worry about me, or me having a relationship with anyone. I don’t  _ have _ a relationship; like I said before, I went off to take a bath in a hot spring with Max—”

That seemed to have triggered both Ellie and Max, who both cried out, until it was Ellie who said, “Alright,  _ enough _ with the pitiful denial! We’re here to talk honestly—”

Max interrupted, sounding more tired than he had before as the man said, “Let them say what they want, we’re not about to let it happen again anyway. What does it matter to any of you what we do in our private time?”

This time it was Nyoka who spoke up to provide an, unexpected, counterpoint. “Hey, even I gotta admit: you guys did the dirty when you oughta been, like, camping and looking out for raiders. Shit, that’s hunter 101; do the nasty on your private time. Although I also gotta admit: doin’ the nasty in a tent is the height of fuckin’ awesome.” Rethinking that point, she added, “Usually. Like, most of the time.”

Neena moaned, ducking forward to bury their face in their hands. “This can’t be happening.”

Parvati spoke up, having been relatively quiet once she had finished telling her short series of events that had caused this intervention. “I don’t think I was in that much danger, I don’t wanna make no huge fuss over nothin’...” She had sunk into her seat, not making eye contact with anyone. Least of all the two people she had been abandoned by to deal with the fallout from the night before.

Ellie turned to look at the girl sat at the table then said, “Parvati, sweetie, you were in danger, even if you could have probably beaten every one of them away with that sledgehammer of yours. Some people,” she turned around, casting a judgmental eye on the two in front of her. “had a duty, as your ally and as your ship Captain, to make sure  _ you _ didn’t get in danger of being ambushed in the middle of the night, alone.”

Max stood up then, clapping his hands lightly. “Alright, I think that’s enough for today. We can pick this conversation up some other time, when everyone is a bit more calmed down.” He looked at Ellie pointedly, then turned to look at his co-guilty party, one eyebrow raised questioningly. “That sound agreeable to you, Neena?”

_ Whatever happened to  _ Captain Castillo? Still, Neena, recognizing that he was right, as much as they wanted to wish they could force Ellie to shut the fuck up, they closed their eyes and said, “Fine, I’m sick of being called a liar by my own crew members anyway—” With that, Neena stood up, stopping short of tossing their damned chair across the room as they walked away, hearing the protests of most of their crew members.

They didn’t give a fuck anymore. Neena decided that if someone had a problem with them about their personal life that they had just used up every bit of so-called civilized behavior that they had in them; they would just put anyone through a fucking wall or drop them off at the nearest godforsaken port in Halcyon.

And just who the  _ fuck _ did these lame assholes think they were, talking like Neena was about to become the bride or groom of the old virgin that they used to fantasize about beating the shit out of?

* * *

One long, hot shower later, and after having spent who knew how long sat against a wall next to their huge chest in their quarters with a tumbler of stand-by vodka that they had been barely drinking out of in hand, Neena was in a mood. They had been fantasizing about fucking their ship’s ex-Vicar again. 

At this point, it was all starting to seem less like a momentary lapse in judgment and character for them, to think about sex with someone so often, and more like a habit they had no conscious desire to make.

They had tried recalling old flames of the past, even unreachable celebrities they had known of back on Earth that used to get their motor, not  _ The Unreliable _ ’s, going. None of it worked. Neena lusted after one man’s body, envisioned doing very bad, and as Ellie had correctly referred to it before, sinful, things to. 

The tumbler was more an object of comfortable familiarity than anything. They had no desire to get wasted—remembering too easily the cockblock that had happened because of how intoxicated they were before—and the only guy they wanted to fuck at least used to be the guy who told them that the  _ liquid _ portion of the crew’s diet was tempting them into behavior that went against the desires of the Great Engineer.

What did he and the rest of them want from their Captain? The once-heiress, drifter, mercenary, barkeep, bounty hunter, you name it, had seen too much to ever want to settle down. What, was Neena about to go out and get a nine to five job with a fucking picket fence at this point? What the hell was wrong with them? 

It felt like realizing that a house you had grown comfortable in after untold years in it actually had a whole other portion of it that they had never even seen. And the questions they had of it could be boiled down into two impossible questions. Just what was this side of them?

Could they quarantine that side of them off—and did they even want to?

As annoyed with themselves as they were, as well as being continuously angry with themselves for leaving Parvati to get jumped in the middle of the night, alone, in the tie they had sat there Neena had almost forgotten about their anger, justified or not, at Ellie and at the other members of the crew. 

That was the mood they were in when the door to their quarters opened, making Neena jump, nearly dropping their tumbler. “Fuck!”

They almost recognized him by the sound of his boot soles hitting the metal of the stairs alone. As Max DeSoto came around the corner Neena willed a scowl on their face, even as a traitorous part of their body—the lower half—felt like it came alive in anticipation. 

“What, can’t knock anymore on your Captain’s door?” They screwed their eyes up to the ceiling reflexively as they acknowledged her. “Can’t ADA say anything to me before someone just walks in?”

Max answered breezily, walking to them. “Turns out, everyone on board, except for me, including the ship’s A.I, is scared of you. Might have something to do with your emotional imbalance.” Count on him to say that without any heavy emotional inflection or even any sense of irony.

He always had been infuriating deadpan for a man of the cloth.

Neena stared up at Max as he sauntered close then looked down at them, his lips rose up in a soft half-smile. Testing the waters with him, Neena clicked their teeth against their lips, said, “Ever occur to you that you should be the person most worried about me?”

Max flashed a grin at them. “Why, I might be the only person on this ship that honestly believes that you’re mostly bark and just enough bite to make life interesting.”

Something must have been wrong with Neena after all, because they oddly respected him for that answer. Looking down at his booted feet to stop from having to look at the face of the man they had been hopelessly wishing to see, Neena asked, “What are you in here for?” When he didn’t answer them, Neena finally looked up at his face.

Up close for the first time in hours, Neena could see how Max looked as tired as they felt, with a dark shadow beneath his warm, muddy eyes. In spite of that the man looked as appetizing as though they both had not already experienced a wondrously heavy hour and then some of hot, wild sex on top of some high grass just a matter of hours before, with a scrap of sleep to make up for it. Max undoubtedly hadn’t even had a shower, but they wanted seconds of the hot sex as soon as they could get it, and from the only person that they wanted it from.

As if he could see some of those desperate, hungry thoughts in their eyes as well as the thoughts that haunted the back of their mind, Max asked, “Am I still in the trial selection for the role of boyfriend?”

Neena felt their face and neck breaking out in a blush. “You know—” Not able to look at him, or that compelling smirk that rested just too well on his face—or, for that matter, that knowing look in his eyes—Neena looked at their hands, at the purple colored liquor in their tumbler.  _ Of fucking course, out of all of the colors of vodka I could have been drinking—it’s  _ purple _.  _ Neena cleared their throat. “That shit was just supposed to be kinky. You’re not—we’re not—I mean, I’m not—”

The verbal diarrhea was thankfully ended when Max said, “Alright then.” Neena looked up at his face, perhaps too eagerly before they could stop themselves, and they found that he was looking at them with a compassion that almost infuriated Neena if it didn’t instead compel them to him. “I came in here to see if you were interested in the regular,” and Neena was almost shocked anew, by hearing him refer to what they did so casually, “but I think in light of our lack of a consensus on what our relationship even is, I think it’s in our best interest to lay off on that aspect, until we’re at least a day away from last night.”

_ I should have known better. Of fucking course.  _ Neena scowled at him. “Now it’s  _ your _ turn to tell me to slow down. So what the hell reason’d you come in here, then? I’m not in the mood for talking.” They took a long, almost vengeful drink out of their tumbler. Wished that most of what they were feeling wasn’t due to the fact that Neena was overcome with their libido.

Max glanced away from their face, seeming to be staring at their hair before he said, “You know… your hair is awful long to be in that state.”

Neena reached behind their head and didn’t need to smooth through much of their unbound, messy hair before they hit a sharp piece of dry grass. They winced. In spite of the shower, their hair was still a disaster. Without looking up at him, Neena asked, “What are you recommending then?”

They didn’t expect him to have much to offer, besides telling Neena to go get it cleaned up, but they were surprised when instead of saying anything, he extended his hand down to them. Neena hesitated, but with an exaggerated sigh, they leaned over, about to try to put the tumbler back on their minibar when Max took it from their hand, setting it down for them then returning to take hold of their hand. He helped them up, and for a moment Neena expected him to kiss them, in spite of what he had said before.

Max had not let go of Neena’s hand, his fingers entwining in theirs before he abruptly took his hand away. “Grab your chair, drag it back to the bed.”

Neena happily turned around, not even thinking too much about the fact that they were taking orders from someone whom they had hated the guts of only an hour prior, grateful for the excuse to not be swept up in the desire to take his hand in theirs. They were dragging the chair back before they finally asked, “What’s this for?”

Turning, they saw that Max was sitting on the edge of their bed, his hands resting on his spread knees. The sight of him sitting down for some reason brought to mind the odd impression of how he looked like this, not in his vestments as he once had worn. How accessible he now looked as he gazed at Neena with what was likely the same expression he had always worn for them before, only now the context seemed completely different. 

He certainly didn’t look, Neena thought, a little desperately, like someone worthy of obsessing over.

He shrugged. “Thought I could do something about your hair.”

Neena snickered, shaking their head. “Are you… wanting to groom me? Like, a primal?”

That made Max grin. “Similar concept, different plan. I thought I could put your hair in a braid.”

That surprised Neena. “Braid? Wait, you—” they pointed at him, incredulous. “ _ You _ know how to braid hair?”

Max’s face lit up even more, his light green eyes warming. “It’s not exactly a difficult concept to grasp. But perhaps, some practice might be in order…”

_ Like other things we’ve tried.  _ But Neena pushed that thought away, looking down at the chair as if paranoid that he could still somehow read their thoughts. “If it makes you happy, then fine.”

As Neena positioned the chair so that the back was facing away from the bed and they sat down in it with their arms crossed over their chest, Max remarked, “Oh, if it  _ makes me happy,  _ then why not?”

Neena sighed, dropping their face into their arms. “Watch it, Max, you’re walking in thin ice right now.”

Whether it was because their threat for once registered with the man or he was astonished at the extent of the mess that was their hair, Max was quiet. Then Neena felt the first touch of his fingers in their hair. 

_ Shiver. _ Why did even this near chaste, friendly touch leave Neena a mess? 

Thankfully he didn’t say anything as Max stroked his fingers through their hair, removing chunks of the dry grass that they had fucked in—or, more properly, he had fucked them, hard, in—smoothing through tangles and snarls. The touch and attention was unexpectedly arousing to Neena, and not all of it was innocent. 

In fact, Neena was surprised to find that they were clutching the back of their chair a bit hard, as if for support. Or so they wouldn’t lay back against the man who was de-tangling their hair. 

Finally, though, it was Neena who spoke, said, “So was it your plan to come in here and do this?”

Max was quiet at first, then he said, “Well, it was something I envisioned.”

Neena smirked, imagined something that would put a damper in his non-erotic plans. “Well, if you’re gonna braid my hair, I hope you brought something to tie it up with. Or else it’ll just be loose.”

Max chuckled. “No, I do not have any elastic, but I know how to do one of these without one. Thank you for your concern and correct critique of my plan, however.”

Neena, too surprised to even be annoyed that Mr. Perfect’s plan wasn’t foiled, stopped his efforts of pulling the dry grass out of their hair by sitting back and, half turning, said, “Wait, you know how to braid, well enough to do it without anything to tie it up?”

Without missing a beat, Max said, “Well, without giving away all of the gory details that you already learned about me, directly, a man does find a lot of time for hobbies and crafts when he has a lifetime of servitude to either a religious order, a social caste, or imprisonment, all of which have applied to me. And, yes, sometimes that includes learning the ways of trying to neaten someone’s appearance without the aid of something available to tie it up.”

Neena couldn’t help but feel their imagination run absolutely wild, imagining which was more erotic to imagine Max running his hands through the hair of—a man with a long mane of hair or some cute thing that had the erotic joy of having their Vicar braiding their hair. They turned back around, grateful that he couldn’t see the expression on their face as Neena bit their bottom lip. At some point they _ had  _ to reach a point where everything he said and did wouldn’t make them want to melt. 

But maybe he could sense their feelings, as Max, starting to run his rough fingers through their hair, said, “I say something wrong?” Before Neena could answer, he said, “I do hope you know—you’re the only person I wanted to take the time to do this to.”

Trying to mask their uncomfortable joy at hearing him say that, Neena said, “Oh, you must really like my hair, huh?”

Max chuckled and Neena could hear the head shake in it. “Fishing, fishing, fishing for compliments from a man you don’t want to be your boyfriend.”

Neena scoffed. “Oh, come off it. You knew what I was when you started this.”

In that infuriatingly, ever calm voice, Max corrected them, saying, “One would argue that it was you who started this. But I’m not here to argue about definitions. I’m doing this because it gives you pleasure. And it gives me pleasure to give  _ you _ pleasure.”

Neena was almost afraid to ask it but something, perhaps self-destructive, made Neena say, “And what if I don’t want a relationship with you like that?”

Surprising them, Max answered, smoothly, “Braiding hair is still something friends do. So just count this as an act of  _ deep _ , abiding friendship.” His fingers, the rough pads of his tips, grazed against the nape of their neck teasingly, not unpleasant.

Neena didn’t know if it was the exhaustion or the light amount of booze they had sipped, but they couldn’t tell if he was being facetious. A dangerous problem to have, with an intelligent, mature man who made it a habit of being snarky. 

And then Max said, “Alright, time to start braiding.”

Neena laughed, giddy on their continued closeness to him, the heat of his body, his touch. “Wait, you can’t be done with detangling.” Fuck knew it took Neena longer to detangle their hair, if they let it become a mess.

Max ran his hand, slowly through their hair against Neena’s scalp, making Neena shiver uncontrollably. “I finished. I’m going to start braiding.”

Neena shifted in their seat, realizing that they had let this go on without comprehending that they were about to have Max braid their damn hair. Prepared for what had to be one of the weirdest and yet oddly exciting experiences that Neena had never had with a man before. 

Neena felt as he manipulated their hair, twisting and twining it with an ease that made them realize that he seemed to have not been making up the fact that he had experience in this. Almost dreading the experience coming to an end, Neena blurted something out that they thought they never would have said. “So, what now?”

He was quiet at first, as if deeply concentrated on his task. “”What” what now?”

Neena rolled their eyes. “You, me, a shipful of crew scared of me—” Neena let their hands drop on the back of the chair. “Where do we go from here?”

Max, without much hesitation, said, “I’ll always be there for you, no matter what. Loyalty, friendship, that’s how that works, I suppose.” He did hesitate for longer, then said, “Never felt that way before.”

Neena again felt the need to tease him, even though they ought to have known better. “So, even if I didn’t let you do some of that stuff you did to me last night again, you’d still want to follow me into hell?”

No hesitation. “What the hell else am I supposed to do in this damned system?” As Neena felt his hands on the ends of their hair, Max said, “Finishing up. I figure you should go talk to the crew.”

Feeling feisty, at the prospect of not being alone with him for much longer and for being told what to do, period, Neena said, “Okay then,  _ mom _ .”

Neena didn’t expect it, as Max tugged his finished work, eliciting a choked cry from Neena before he let go, only to run his hand against Neena’s cheek, then reach down to take hold of one side of their neck, pulling them closer back so that he could whisper against their ear, “Might want to watch how you talk to me, now that I made this leash. And, that’s the wrong terminology. Last night you were actually calling me  _ daddy _ .”

Neena didn’t have a chance to stop the whimper that crept out of their throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear these chapters read fine when I go through them early in the week, but when it's time to post I have to re-read the whole damn thing and revise it all over agaun. Doesn't help it when I keep writing these long stories--or that I have this vision of perfection I can't reach--anyway...
> 
> To be honest even revising this feels like a vacation in comparison to the work I'm facing on my manuscript. Fan fiction feels different than trying to make your own thing that you want people to pay for one day. I knew stuff was going to get pushed back, but it feels disheartening to see everything pushed back because it's hard to keep up with what I want and need to do. 
> 
> Aside from that (I feel like I come here to bitch about that progress every damn week) I just... I don't know. I feel disappointed in my personal life? Not to get too intimate, but this whole thing that's happening came right when I was expecting to maybe take a new position at work and now they're talking about cutting our pays if we close down again, so... who KNOWS if that position is even going to be open? It's frustrating; it's not a case of imposter syndrome, I EARNED that position from having to carry more than my fair share of work at laughable pay and hours. I feel like a part of who I was when I started here is kind of gone at this time, the passion, the humanity. I feel like I've been trapped by people who hate that I am an individual and want me to just disappear or to just shut up and take the work load without complaint, especially from certain people who offer little guidance but are there to attack me if I make reasonable mistakes. And, hell, it hurts to be told by upper upper management that they view people who interact with the highest potential of getting sick and not being able to afford it that we're accepting their welfare for getting our full pay and then being told that all we care about from the public is that we get our paychecks. I feel like all I hear all around is that I'm not good enough and should be happy to get "handouts" for honest work I put in.
> 
> JEESH, was that personal enough? I don't know, it feels better to write it here for some reason than to talk to anyone besides my partner about it out loud. 
> 
> *awkward* Uhm, so do you guys like the middle haul of this story? I always worry about how these scenes that guide a sense of realness and friendship reads, but whenever a story seems to lack these scenes... it feels lie the soul is missing from them? I don't know. I feel a bit like I'm trapped in a forest, I can't see the damn trees any longer.
> 
> We're going to pretend I didn't get personal there. See you next week!
> 
> \---k.


	23. 22. Cheap Thrills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rewarding themselves with something fun after acting like an adult brings unusual revelations to Captain Castillo.

It was easier to deal with the rest of the crew once Neena broke and, with gentle prodding, made something approaching an apology for their outburst. Then decided that some not so honest work for everyone, with some bits in their pockets, would help smooth over the memory. 

In that mind, it took a day before the Captain was even able to think of anything besides work, food, or collapsing somewhere out of exhaustion. And, sure enough, as Neena brooded anew in the cockpit, a not unfamiliar need rose up in them. Checking one last time to make sure that everything would be in order, Neena got up and walked up the stairwell, passing their bedroom as they headed for one person in particular. They had made their mea culpa for the whole ship and her crew; in the Captain’s mind they were virtuous enough to speak to the man who had once been the ship’s holy counsel.

They found the object of their fixation sat at the end of the dining table that, just two days before, had been where they had gotten chastised for the very same thing that Neena had come in here for. And he wasn’t alone in the room. 

Parvati and Felix sat on the opposite side of the table from Max, close to the entrance, deep in conversation about an aetherwave drama. As Neena was halfway across the room they were stopped by a surprised-sounding Felix.

“Hey Captain, already done in there?” The man was sitting with his chair turned around in a position that Neena was now too familiar with, made them recall the last time they had spent time with Max touching their hair. “We doing anything right now?”

Neena kept their eyes on his face, making a point to not let their eyes trail away from his and end up looking as guilty as they were. “No, I can’t think of anything we could do tonight.”  _ Lie.  _ “I thought we could have a night on board, you know?”

Felix looked like he was going to protest, then Parvati spoke up, sounding relieved. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that, Captain. There’s a new episode of my favorite drama comin’ on tonight. I could record it, I usually do when we’re busy, but there’s nothing like experiencing it fresh.” Her eyes darted to the side, at Felix, a look that almost looked… accusatory?—on her face before she looked back at Neena. “Stops people who’re ahead of you from spoilin’ something.”

Felix scoffed, crossing his arms as he looked at his best friend. “I—I don’t spoil  _ anything!” _ He stopped, then added, guiltily, “on  _ purpose _ .”

As Parvati and Felix sank into a conversation that sounded a lot like a semi-argument Neena slipped out of the conversation, walking down to their target. Max sat back in his chair, a knowing look resting on his calm features. 

Neena had to make it a point to not rush to him and once they were a few feet from their ship’s ex-Vicar, Neena said, “I thought we could talk—” They re-thought what they were saying, how the proposition sounded, then corrected themselves. “I wanted to show you something,” Neena also knew that if they asked to go talk, in private, in one of their rooms, that if Felix or Parvati heard them that they would know exactly what was going on. As Felix had said it himself, they were only so naive. So Neena caught themselves before they used their once stand-by, which was needing to talk to him for counseling. “In the workshop.”

Yes, although Neena would have normally hesitated before they thought to do this in Parvati’s usual haunt, they had a feeling that the conversation that both she and Felix were in would last a while longer. And Neena was just interested in getting some alone time—any amount they could manage—with the sensual ex-holy man, and they thought that it was a pretty good bet that one of the only places on  _ The Unreliable _ where they could get some sort of privacy would be their only chance at getting the relief they so needed. 

At least that was how Neena had been reasoning this to themselves. They needed relief, after all, and Max was the only person available to do it for them as he had told them himself.

Thankfully Max gave them a knowing look but hid it, ducking his head as he got up from his chair. “Why, certainly, I would be more than happy to help you with whatever it is you need.”

They walked past the bathroom, then onto the catwalk that stood over the workshop’s first floor, with Neena not having the guts to turn around to see if the two crewmembers were watching. Wordlessly, Neena grabbed onto the larger man’s hand and dragged him to the far side of the catwalk, walking towards the unused respec bench. Aside from the low chuckle that their companion made, Neena couldn’t tell if Max had a clue as to how immediate their needs were.

Needy Neena. More like  _ greedy _ , taking all of the time, or wanting to take what he had, from Max DeSoto.

This was the wrong time for introspection, Neena figured, when they were in the middle of a cultural and regime tug of war between the Board and, well, everyone else, as well as when they were so filled with a hot desire that it was becoming harder with each passing day to not throw the man on the table and defile him in front of the whole crew.

As they neared the bench, shuttled into a near forgotten corner of the upper portion of the workshop, it was Max who spoke to ADA, saying, “We would appreciate it if you would keep this to yourself, ADA. And give a warning, if someone comes into the workshop, won’t you?”

ADA, apparently having taken a new shine onto the ship’s ex-holy man, said, “Of course. Please be careful, and I would recommend no penetration unless someone has brought a con—”

Max was also the one who, with a hand thrown across his eyes, stopped the A.I hurriedly. “ _ Thank you _ , we will keep that in mind.” He took his hand away and looked at Neena, a fresh smile fitting on his face. “So, what have we got planned today—”

Neena stopped him, grabbing for his hand as they un-did the fly and zipper of their trousers with their other hand. Before Max had a clue what was going on, Neena took his hand and shoved it down their pants. They watched his face, looking at his expressions as he went from cocksure to surprised by how forward they were. Even for  _ them, _ Neena was being blunt.

And, judging by how that earlier grin, now with a shade of wickedness to it, had returned, Neena guessed that he approved. Or, else, was into it.

As Neena maneuvered his hand, twisting it so that his fingers were pointed towards them, Neena slid his hand over their crotch with only the barrier of the fabric of their underwear keeping them separated. They already knew what both would find from this; Neena was wet, their skin clinging to the fabric, making the invasive fingers that slid against them damp.

Max ducked his head so that his mouth was next to their ear as he said, “Oh, by the Great Engineer—fuck, I don’t want to invoke… that…” he broke off, then, with a soft moan, he continued, “you’re so goddamn wet.”

Not thinking about how it might invoke something, an exclusivity they might not have wanted to hint at, Neena impulsively whispered back, “Just for you, Max; just for you.”

He groaned, and Neena could feel him regaining control over his posture, his body. He took control of his hand, rubbing his fingers against the damp, rough fabric of the underwear. The sensation, the teasing, incidental touch on their clit, made Neena jolt. They let go of his hand, letting Max control this much.

Soon though it became clear to both that over the clothes rubbing, even over their underwear, wouldn’t be enough. Not withdrawing his fingers, Max pulled away just enough so that Neena could see his drowsy-looking eyes that were nevertheless filled with an electric energy, a heat. “What do we want to do now?”

Hoping that they weren’t going to become a melting, quivering mess, Neena said, “You’re gonna take care of… of  _ this _ .”

Max spread his legs out further, then pressed forward, his hips hitting Neena’s. “Want me to take care of you?” Without warning, Max slipped his hand up, over the edge of the elastic of Neena’s underwear, then slid his big, rough hand inside, running it past the patch of their hair, then slipped against their vulva, cupping them. “What  _ should _ I do to this, hmm?”

Neena opened their mouth to tell him what they wanted then it felt like they were silenced as he took the initiative, slipping his fingers in the wet crease, down, until his index and middle fingers were achingly close to slipping into them, his thumb pressed on their clit. Instead Neena just moaned.

They had trained this recent virgin too well. Neena was starting to lose the much needed control they had on him. But… did they really want to exercise control over him,  _ now _ , right now?

And besides, he seemed like he was in a pleasing mood. 

They were already too far gone by the time the man who was pleasuring them spoke. “How about we take this to a proper bed?”

Neena moaned, instinctively drew away, overwhelmed by the feel of his calloused fingers, only for Max to reach forward with his other hand, pressing it into the small of their back. Even as he almost short circuited Neena’s brain by slipping his fingers back into his earlier position, they managed to find their voice. “Not yet. I thought we could… on the table…”

Max turned, glancing over Neena’s shoulder at the workshop bench, then he looked back at his Captain, a knowing glint in his eyes. “Won’t be easy, getting you back into your trousers, Castillo.”

Neena bit back a fresh moan as he dragged his fingers along the edge of their hole, thumb tenderly caressing their clit, spreading their juices all over their engorged flesh. “Just call me Neena… when we’re… when you’re touching m-my pussy. I don’t care, lay me back on the bench.”

Max drew his hand out, making them feel bereft of his touch. Then without warning the man picked them up with a slight grunt, almost drawing a surprised shriek from Neena before they wrapped a hand over their mouth to stop it. He carried them over to the bench, maneuvering the device that had been gathering dust for who knew how long aside and laying his Captain on its edge. Once Neena was looking into his face, reddened with a warm, appealing blush, Max drew the fingers that he had been teasing them with into his mouth and suckled on them.

Neena shuddered at the sight, then started to tear their trousers off, yanking them past their shaking knees, forgetting about their underwear until it was too late. Max came to the rescue, pulling their underwear down to their ankles alongside their trousers. With a pant that Neena could hear in their voice, they asked, “Can you pull my boots off?”

Max shook his head, then repositioned his hand so that he was covering their vulva between their mostly shut legs. “No time for that. Besides, like you said, what if someone walks in here?”

Neena whimpered, found themselves looking at Max pleadingly. “But I won’t be able to open up all the way…”

Max grinned, shrugging his shoulders. “Well, I’ll have to improvise, then won’t I?” And before Neena could figure at what he was going to do, the man dropped to his knees, as if he was about to pray before an altar, then he removed his hand, burying his face between their thighs.

Without the ability to spread their legs further Neena couldn’t give him the space he needed to get to every part of them. But it offered less space for him to cover and tease with his tongue and lips, even the slight stubble on his cheeks, chin, and above his upper lip offering a full range of differing sensation. As Neena fell back, resting their head on the railing that the desk was sat up against, they were helpless to do anything but grope at their chest, grab for the edge of the desk that their legs hung off of, then, with trembling hands, thread their fingers through Max’s hair.

As Max began to lap and lave at the sensitive tip of their clit Neena sat up, watching as he worked, his eyes closed in what could almost, from this angle, be construed as a look of relaxation, his hands cupping around the outside of Neena’s thighs. It was easy to ignore the cramping tightness that Neena felt from the position they were in—as well as from the cold, hard metal of the table they were laid out on top of. Under Max’s continued attention, Neena felt their orgasm bearing down on them in spite of their position and situation. They became desperate, Neena trying to meet it, bucking up against his mouth as Max turned his attention to their vagina, slipping his tongue past the lining, lapping against their clit and back in again. 

As Neena was about to demand—beg—for him to insert something,  _ anything _ , Max, as if reading their mind, took the index and middle finger of his right hand and slipped them in, awkwardly stuffing their tight, almost shut pussy as he rode their clit with his tongue.

It was agony as Neena fought for that orgasm, bucking hard, not caring if they pummelled his face or hand too hard. They were hardly aware of it, how they bounced up and down off of the table, panting, one of their hands tight against the too-tight enclosure of their shirt and binding over their chest, the other hand grabbing onto the edge of that table. They loved this, really, but now Neena hungered for more,  _ more _ , to be able to sprawl their legs far apart, to alternate some of this attention with the feel of Max’s lovely, hard dick, grinding, inserting, pushing them open,  _ open _ —

With a barely withheld scream that turned into a squeak, Neena came, their entire body pushed as far up off of the table as they were capable of with his face buried between their thighs. There was no time or energy to care about the torrent of liquid that gushed out of them, coated Max’s face, his hands. Maybe even the table.

For a long moment Neena laxed back, laid their head back on the railing, letting their eyes drift closed. They forgot where they were, who they were supposed to be. Only felt like they knew that they wanted to feel the beautiful man who had made them cum hard pressed against them, inside of them.

As the high wore off, Neena sat up on their elbows, struggling to focus, watched as Max pulled away, his face glistening with a moisture that was both enthralling and, yes, strangely, always, humiliating to see. He was panting and Neena almost expected him to pull his dick out there and fuck them. When instead he pulled their pants up, hooking their underwear back into place along the lines of Neena’s hips, it brought Neena crashing back into reality.

Max looked at them, and said, with a sincerity that was oddly compelling and powerful, “I need to cum soon or I might explode.”

With no ability or desire to tease him, Neena just nodded, finding their brains just enough to say, “We go back the way we came in and it’ll be a walk of shame.”

It was true. There was no fucking way that neither didn’t stink of hot sex. Reeking of it, with Max’s face covered in a veritable aftershave of it. And even as desperate as he looked to get relief of his own, he never looked as alive, wild and happy as he did then.

Max bit his plush, worn lip. “Then, an impromptu shower—”

Neena started to find more of their brains as the moment wore on, helped in no small part by their frustration that matched Max’s own to make him orgasm as well as a desire to get off of the cold metal table their ass felt frozen onto. “No, that’s too obvious. Everybody on here has the bladder of a sprat.”

And Max looked like he had been fucking, that was for sure. Face rosy with a blush, wet, eyes awake and also doped in that too obvious way, his hair a mess from where Neena had groped, ridden him back for relief. 

He let out a frustrated sigh, taking a step back to let Neena sit up, hike up the rest of their trousers and cover their soaking pussy with their now soaking underwear. “So, what do we do?”

Grateful that he didn’t just demand that Neena do the, well, blatantly obviously sensible thing; just stop trying to pretend that they were just two friends who just liked to talk in private a lot, Neena thought of one room that they realized they had never thought of before.

Well, there was a  _ good _ reason why it had never occurred to them. 

And there was something, a glint that had appeared in Max’s eyes suddenly, that made Neena believe that they weren’t the only person thinking about it, either.

* * *

As Neena walked into the cockpit behind their strange choice for a torrid affair, they realized that they had never actually closed the door to this room before. After all, they had never had a reason to close it.

As they hit the door button and then engaged the lock, Neena felt almost too guilty to say, “ADA, can you stop anyone from trying to come in here? And, ADA, is there any way you can stop watching this room?” Neena stared at the A.I’s face display, catching the sour look that the generated face gave them. “Please?” 

But, even as ADA stared at them with a look of disbelief, Neena didn’t let anything as miniscule like guilt or sense stop them. Not when the other person who was looking at them was Max. And Max, he looked—

As Neena watched the display module, ADA’s face switched off, then she said (was it possible for an A.I to sound annoyed and disappointed?) “Very well. I shall give you a modicum of privacy.” Then, as if hesitating, ADA added, "Do you two really believe it's wise to continue this affair, when things are as critical to our success in the mission to revive the Hope Colonists?"

Max spoke, walking a step closer to Neena, hand outstretched as he was about to touch them. "Thank you for your concern, ADA, but I think that everyone on board has their own coping mechanisms and ways of maintaining emotional and mental hygiene.”

Neena walked towards Max, closing the distance between them. They had so recently cum, but it felt like their body was aching with a fresh desire. “Yes, thank you, ADA. I’ll wake you up when we’re done.”

Half expecting ADA to refuse to go, when she said nothing, Neena let out a breath that had been trapped in their throat, looking away as Max reached for them, taking hold of Neena’s arm and pulling them in against him. 

Neena met Max’s eyes, found that everything else about the room—about the ship, about Halcyon—went away, ceased to matter. When he leaned down and pressed—crushed—his lips to theirs, Neena was pressing back just as hard back on him. It might have been meant as a quick kiss, a reminder and rekindling of their former mood, but kissing Max was an experience that sucked Neena in. And, if the way that Max was grabbing them, pressing Neena against him, was any indication, then he was as mindlessly turned on as Neena was.

And Max tasted like heat, of hunger, of Neena’s orgasm, which still clung to his lips, his mouth.

Neena ended up pressing Max, in spite of his height, against the control panel, kissing him. With Max it was always seemingly a toss up with which version of him that Neena was going to get; the version who longed for what seemed a lot like approval or guidance, or the one who seemed to love nothing more than to pin Neena down or take pleasure from them. 

The question of which Max Neena would be dealing with was an erotic joy that Neena could not think of a time before they were frozen where they were so hot with anticipation to imagine fucking or making love with someone. Of course, not that Neena would have ever referred to what they did with anyone as “making love”.

He groaned, rolling his hips against their abdomen, where a fresh, ravenous hunger was coiling through them. Max pulled away with a gasp, then said, “I hate to say it, but if we’re going to do anything more than some mouthplay,” something impure in Neena burned at the sound of that wicked term in his voice. “Then we will need some aids.”

Neena stared up at Max, breathless, most of the way to losing their mind. Then it came to them and they had to blink to regain some control over their mind. “You’re talking about us leaving.”

Max, to the satisfaction of Neena who was growing afraid that they were the one who had lost their cool, seemed to struggle keeping up his own usual facade of calmness. Blurting something out, he squeezed his eyes shut, then corrected himself, saying, “My room. I have what we need.”

Neena scoffed, holding their arms over their chest as their nipples strained against the binding painfully. “I can’t go in there. The whole reason we’re in here is to  _ not _ make this look suspicious to everyone else.”

Max chuckled, the sound coming out strained, pained. “I’ll go.” He moved, as if to walk past them, then he seemed to re-think it, leaning back to kiss Neena, his tongue plunging into their mouth. Neena pressed themselves against him, ready to just throw him on the ground and ride him, condom or no.

Right before Neena was about to just do it, do it before they would be interrupted by some other damn member of the crew or ADA, Max pulled away, almost lunging for the door as he disengaged the lock and the door mechanism. With the door opened behind him, Max was about to leave when he turned around, said, “Don’t get too impatient, I won’t procrastinate.”

Neena stared at the man, caught between annoyance and a need for him to come back and not leave, which came out as, “Don’t fuck with me, DeSoto.”

The man had the audacity to wink at them before he said, “I wouldn’t dream of doing  _ anything _ to that effect.”

As he walked away Neena found that they wanted to collapse, as if being in the presence of Max was a possessive force that filled Neena. They walked over to the commander’s chair and slouched down in it, becoming hyper aware as they slid into it of the damp fabric that clung to their crotch. More laundry, more trouble for them.

Neena looked up at the view panel above the display monitor and the controls, found their eyes drawn to the blinking shapes of the stars. They remembered, far too easily, the last time they had had sex with Max. How it had felt to lay on his muscular chest and look at the glittering expanse that had become their playground.

How, for a matter of an hour, Neena had felt like they could do anything, had a bright future to look forward to. 

The Captain chuckled, turned their gaze down to look at the stark, opaque black of the display monitor where they were almost growing accustomed to talking to Welles every few nights. They normally knew better than to think seriously about something as stupid—naive—as things like stability, friendship. 

Something like love.

As soon as that thought occurred to them, Neena felt their pulse pick up in their throat. Now, there was no reason to think of anything  _ that  _ drastic. After all,  _ love _ , that was something you felt immediately for a person. At least, that was what all of the dramas that Neena had learned about love had taught them. You see a person and something special “clicks” in you for them, letting you know that they were The One. Something, even if it was just a special kind of lust, that struck you like a thunderbolt the second you laid eyes on someone, couldn’t compare to  _ that _ . Right? 

Well, Neena smirked, relieving themselves with their line of thought, the way that they had felt about Max for a long time before—any of this—had started, was as far from how they had come to feel for him as was possible. Murderous thoughts had long been the norm before the erotic ones had begun in earnest.

But, the way they felt for him, now… there was nothing, not a thing that they could cling to, in order to comprehend it. It was like some cheap riddle, one that they had figured that someone as old and well versed in the ways of physical love as they were should not have been able to feel. 

As Neena stared back at the implacable world of shining white stars and seemingly encompassing darkness all around it, they thought about things that made them uneasy, uncomfortable. For a brief moment, Neena considered turning ADA back on, out of a desire for companionship in a moment that felt too dear, too tender to spend alone. 

It was the sound of the door opening that pulled Neena out. Then they realized that he had returned, his breathing softly labored as if he had rushed back, saw how Max was wearing the start of a grin, a look that fit the face of a man more than a decade younger than he was. It looked absolutely breathtaking on his face.

He hurried into the cockpit, shutting the door behind him. When he turned around to face Neena, the man revealed what he had been hiding in the pockets of his jacket.

In that moment, Neena forgot the thoughts that had been haunting them as a grin spread across their own face. Unable to resist—not really wanting to—Neena asked, “Someone been feeling neglected?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's kind of hard to believe that we're over half of the story here. I find myself wondering what will happen to this, once it's fully uploaded. Will it get a fresh rise in audience, or will it get buried? Forgive me if I am a bit maudlin, I am less antsy and more forgiving of fate, given my current situation. Although I think it is bad practice to equate someone else's struggle or happiness, it is trite but true that hearing other people's struggles can sometimes shed light on the quality of your own. I have my writing, which other people would never even dream of the joy and peace it gives me, and I have stability, even if it is bordering on stagnation.
> 
> Got that out of the way. While I was revising this, I found myself reading further than the chapter at hand and finding myself pulled into the slipstream of the story. I can say that as much as I love the first half of this story, the second half was a labor of love to create that I really had to push myself to make (kind of due to the effect of having all of these other stories in the fandom at the same time) and I am barely able to hold myself back in excitement to keep from wanting to share it all, let alone wanting to re-read it all my own! 
> 
> I just started watching *Sense 8*, which I stayed away from because of listening to other people's opinions of it. I wish I'd ignored them in the first place, because this show is totally my jam. I've also dipped my toe back into reading fan fiction. Fiction is an amazing escape, something worthy to wrap your whole life around, if it speaks to you.
> 
> Have a good week, I guess is what I'm trying to say.


	24. 23: Strange Pleasures

Max stood in front of the closed, locked cockpit door, holding in one hand a true to shape and size purple dildo whose color was so dark it bordered on near black while in the other hand he presented the now-familiar, flat, round cylinder of the container of warming lube. 

Resisting the urge to, really, just jump up take the obvious bait, Neena instead turned in their Captain’s chair, resting their hands on their lust-filled abdomen as they tried to look at Max with as much carefree playfulness as they could manage. 

It seemed to work a little bit as the ship’s counselor slipped the items back into his pockets, his eyelids sliding half closed over the imperceptible expression in his eyes. Raising his head slightly, Max said, “Would it be too much of an imposition to request you take the reins as the, what were we calling this again? “A try out for the role of boyfriend”?”

That made something utterly unwholesome leap to violent life inside of Neena. They had to actively fight to keep their grin as tame as they could fake. He was playing to their ego, openly pandering. And they didn’t give a single fuck; in fact, if anything, they relished a partner, no matter how brief in their time together, who was skillful, creative enough to use his conversational skills to tease and flirt with them. Feeling their lips curving into a greedy little smirk, Neena said, “You keep testing me, you’ll see where it gets you.” And the Captain only hoped that that place would be bent over the controls, riding him. 

Ah, it was too bad, only, that the tool he had brought was something that would necessitate them keeping a steady hand on it at all times, wouldn’t allow them free reign of his beautiful, honey body—

Max walked into the cockpit proper, that grin of his faltering just a bit as he pulled the, Neena could suppose them to be, gifts from his pockets. Only this time his hands were spilling over; it seemed that he had brought more than the two things that he had revealed to them. Condoms, a reasonable recommendation from, of all people, the ship’s own A.I, and a question mark in the form of a set of brown leather straps in a tangled mess. About to ask what their likely reason was, Neena caught sight of metal rings in the tangle.

They found that their throat had grown too dry when they swallowed with a lot of difficulty. It was a lot harder to maintain a once-easy smile on their face. “What’s with the heavy hardware, padre?”

If he understood the reference, Max didn’t show, shrugging as he started to take his jacket off slowly, folding it with his already filled hands. As he sat his jacket down on the control panel, some of that once well groomed hair of his falling over one of his cheeks, Max softly said, “I never pretended that I wasn’t… enamored of a certain side of you, dear Captain.”

Neena, seeing a moment of vulnerability, spread their knees out, splaying out in their chair. They could feel the feral joy that rose in them at the thoughts of mastering someone who had been taking up far too much of their mental and emotional real estate. “Yes, you have. Spent the first half and then some of our relationship, pretending you weren’t my ardent slut.”

Oh, that felt _ good _ to say.

And, in spite of everything he had been promising, saying, doing, a slight bit of redness crept up the side of the man’s neck, spreading up the side of his face. He lowered his eyes for a moment, leaving Neena with a satisfied grin that filled not only their face but was a momentary lapse from the engulfing hunger that coiled, heavy, in their abdomen, making them feel all hard, wet, wonderfully irritated. 

He blew a breath out, shaking his head before he looked up at his sometimes, still, adversary, but more often than not was now a partner in a sort of crime. Max’s eyes, sweet green, somehow seemed to reflect something darker. Heady, infectious, inebriating. “If that is what you want to refer to me. Yes. But I am so much more than that, Neena.” As he said their name, Max rose his head up, pride visible in him; as always, a better fit on his body than even his clothing ever was.

The grin that had been on Neena’s mouth faltered. Neena wished they hated when he hinted at something that wasn’t just erotic, intimate. That would have been so much easier to deal with.

But Max DeSoto was never an easy man to deal with.

Neena sat up in their captain’s chair, hoping that looking away from him would clear their head as they feigned disinterest, looking away at nothing. “Now, let’s not forget why we’re both here.”

The sound, of metal clinking, drew Neena’s attention back to him. Revealed that Max was unfurling the metal rings and leather which was now revealed to be a harness, the kind that fit over slim hips, smaller than his. To their surprise, it appeared as though the man had indeed done his research, as he had bought a rig that came equipped with a thankful addition for an oversensitized vulva; a little silicon barrier. 

Max, it seemed, took this subject of his research seriously. And he had refined tastes in the subject as well. And if anything the source of the money he undoubtedly used to pay for these things, work requiring a gun and a less than stellar set of morals, only made them seem more taboo and wicked.

As Neena’s eyes rose up to meet his, Max looked at them expectantly. “Oh, there is no need to worry.” As always, it seemed, he spoke in that perfectly civil, clean tone. As if Neena were someone he were offering counsel to. “I haven’t forgotten why we’re here. You’ll soon see that.” At least he didn’t wink or grin at them.

Neena shivered, about to try to take him off balance by demanding that he strip when it seemed that Max read their mind. He sat the wicked-looking toys down on top of his jacket and pulled his shirt loose from his pants, unbuttoning and unzipping the button fly, slipping his belt loose with a strangely erotic hushing sound. He tossed the belt on the ground, gazing at Neena with an ease and feeling of normalcy that threatened to drive the Captain of  _ The Unreliable  _ insane.

As easily as if he were asking Neena what it was that was bothering them and if they would like to discuss it, the ex-Vicar asked, “How clothed do you want to be?”

Neena felt something deep and primal in their guts leap at the question. Clearing their throat and crossing their arms over their chest, worried that their hardened nipples might somehow strain through their bindings, they asked back, “I don’t know, how nude would you like me, if you were the one driving this ship?”

Max scoffed, looking away from them as a lush smile crept on one edge of his lips. “”Unless you’re offering to give control of the ship to me for a time, I think I would prefer it if you were as close to nude as I can get you.” He looked back at them, muddy green eyes seeming to glow with some unwholesome emotion. “You know; if we’re to take this bet that we won’t be caught red-handed as it were, then we ought to take it as far as we can.”

_ Oh, should we? Haven’t we already?  _ Even though thus far with him it had proven to be not as effective as they would have preferred, Neena relied on their old tricks, hoping that by sinking into playing a game of chicken with him; that the man would relent on pushing them, further and further out of their comfort zone, he would show some once-characteristic weakness where his wants and needs were concerned. 

Neena stood up, started to slip their shirt off. The feel of it coming off of their overhot, bothered skin was an aching relief. “Skin to skin, then? By all means, don’t let me put a damper on your fantasies.”

Max was leaned against the control panel, watching as Neena started to strip, unraveling the bindings. His lips slipped open as a lust-filled brightness grew in his eyes. Once their chest was bared, as if on cue the man slipped his hand down, tugged his pants down his thighs.

Neena snickered, realizing where this was going. “I think we’re both gonna have a hell of a time, getting our boots off.”

Max laughed, shaking his head. “Captain, o Captain, I do believe you have a point about our current predicament. And I believe the only recourse for it is to simply get it over with.”

Neena went back to the Captain’s chair, fingers catching onto the edge of their boots before they began to clumsily unlace them. All the while they told themselves that from now on, in their own damn ship, they would need to wear fucking slippers. Maybe stash some condoms, small pillows for propping and kneeling purposes, and some things for fun insertions, all over the ship.

It was exhilarating to think about planning for future rendezvous, something that they had never had to think about before with anyone else. Future intimacy with someone whose tastes and style they had begun to know as well as their own.

They dropped one boot off of their foot, looking up in time to see the reason for their neverending torment leaned against the wall next to the panel of controls, ripping his own boot off. It took a concerted effort for Neena to switch their attention back to pulling their other boot free; the man looked too damn beautiful as he tried to take his clothes off with an awkward finesse.

Finally, with his feet freed, Max, gasping from the effort it had taken to try to rip the second boot off of his other foot, asked, his voice beginning to break, “Is it… alright, if I want to touch you, first?”

Neena instinctively drew their thighs tight together. They had cum so recently, but they were beginning to feel eager, yawning for pleasure anew. Affixing a sneer to their lips, Neena leaned back, topless in the Captain’s chair of their ship, and said, “Now, now. I can’t even see that nice chest of yours.”

As always, but endlessly surprising to a person used to seeing Max with a modicum of control and dignity, the man nodded as if he had been given instruction that he found to be acceptable. “You’re right, Ca—” he paused, then, rethinking a title that, in this situation did not repulse but actually appealed far too much to the Captain, he said, “Neena.” The man did as he was indeed instructed, pulling his shirt up, loose of his broad shoulders before tossing it on the ground.

_ Beautiful _ . Max was a strong man, one who seemed to have once learned the ability to hide his powerful body in the guise—prison—of a holy man’s attire. Even when not fully clothed in the uniform befitting a man who was bound to some strange belief system, clothes didn’t ever fully do justice to Max. It was the kind of body that someone, one of those dried out husks of people who lived in company towns or, for that matter, the kind who lived in luxury back on Earth or in the golden palace of Byzantium, could not possibly possess. 

It seemed that Max did not miss the open stare that his lover was giving his chest, as he regained Neena’s attention by asking, “What’s the matter, see something you like?”

Neena fixed a ready smile on their face. “Any particular reason you have the body of someone who did a lot more weight lifting than he possibly could have done research or preaching?”

Max shrugged, standing up as straight as he could. He looked too much like an erotic fantasy, standing in their cockpit wearing just his pants, shirtless and confident. As he leaned against the control panel, Max said, “Everybody needs a hobby. And I happened to pick one that suited my situation, as my positions as prisoner and laborer.” He quirked his lips. “Also the… occasional game of tossball.”

It was too easy to recall the older man when he had been in his best element, this side of getting his point across. Running across a field, shirtless; a bold, sun-burnished man who ran and maneuvered with shocking finesse and power.

Neena slid back against their chair, taking the moment to appreciate the beauty in front of them openly, boldly. “If that harness and cock you brought is any indication of your intention, then I don’t think I’ll be appreciating that chest for much longer tonight.” And, before they could lose their nerve—or Max could tell them the obvious, that it was Neena’s turn—they sighed and stood up, unbuttoning their pants. When they happened to look up at him, Neena saw the look on Max’s face as he stared at their bared body. Trying to hide the unintentional smile that wanted to grow on their face ,Neena looked down, taking their trousers off as they said, “With our luck, I don’t know how much longer we have in here before we have someone at the door.” Stepping out of their trousers, Neena realized that they had not envisioned that they would ever again be about to penetrate Max with something besides their fingers. Were they actually nervous, or anxious, about having sex with someone—afraid of being rejected for their more masculine side and needs?

They had been looking down at their shed pants for too long, missed as Max had closed the distance between them, surprised when he cupped their chin in the cradle of his half-closed fingers, rose their face up until Neena was forced to look into his eyes. 

His eyes were a soft green, gentle even with the need that seemed to glow from them. Funny; Neena never imagined that they would ever crave something that could be categorized as  _ gentle. _ “I want us to enjoy what time we have together. No matter what it is.”

They knew, somewhere in the back of their mind, what he really meant, knew also that to focus on it might kill this beautiful thing that they wished he could let them experience without having to endanger everything that Neena knew about themselves. But they were trapped, kept staring into those eyes until Neena could feel their excitement bursting from them until it was nearly painful to contain it. 

Neena forced their ego and their machismo to the surface until they had lifted their chin free of his fingers, looking at him from underneath their half shut eyes. In a soft voice, Neena asked, “What do you want from me, DeSoto?”

That luscious, characteristic smirk of his warmed Neena from the inside like a shot of whiskey. “Well, Captain Castillo, I was actually hoping that you would love my body like I so  _ deeply _ desire.” Hard to miss was the the bite of poison, originating from a touch of mock-deference in his voice.

Neena’s hand had found one of his own as they listened to him, cupped his fingers in their own without realizing it. It felt as natural as anything could have felt for them. Staring him in his eyes, Neena pulled his fingers to their lips, watching as he gazed at them, sliding the rough, snagging skin on the pads of his fingertips against the soft, slightly chapped texture of their lips. Rough wrapped around warm, thick digits.

As the older man looked at their entwined fingers, his own eyelids sliding half closed over his eyes, Neena opened their lips and drew his fingers in, just the tips of his index and middle fingers, softly sucking on them. Taking in the taste of his clean skin, almost imagining the taste of themselves somehow still on his fingers as well as what they fantasized; the imprint of so many pages of physical books on the rough texture of his finger prints. 

Tasted Max at his most potent, something so raw, profane, and so sophisticated. 

Sliding their tongue around his fingertips one last time, Neena withdrew his hand and hoped their voice wasn’t as husky as it sounded to their own ears. “What do you want from me, specifically?”

They saw the moment that what Neena was asking—telling him—to do, registered with him. Dragging in a breath, Max said, “I want you to… that is… what I brought in here, it’s something—something I can’t stop thinking of, since you did it for me the first time.”

Neena needed to hear it, had decided they would do nothing, not a thing, he was insinuating. If Max truly wanted to have that part of him owned by his Captain then he would need to say it, loud, and specifically. 

Letting a smirk settle on their face even as the one that Max had been sporting faded from his mouth as he began to babble, Neena felt as their confidence returned in full force. “Are you still a good boy for the Great Engineer, or are you mine?”

They had never called him that—not aloud, not to his face before. the question, strange as it was, came out of Neena honestly. But as soon as the term left their lips, Neena wondered if they had overdone it. Or if the man would simply laugh in their face. Break their shared immersion in this fantasy.

Max surprised them when a fire seemed to ignite in his eyes, the breath hissing out of his lips. He seemed to find his voice finally, blinking rapidly. “Well, if I have a choice between the two, then I certainly don’t want to be… that is, I would rather be… yours.”

With their confidence regained, Neena went back on the aggressive. They reached up to the side of his face, took hold of the side of his well-formed cheek, barely touching, standing on their toes as they forced his gaze to meet theirs. Watching his eyes for whatever they could see in them. “Because I have to tell you. I only want to fuck what’s mine tonight. I don’t have any interest in giving that kind of pleasure to just anybody.”

There was no time to think of the implication that, either, the check that their mouth was writing for them. Instead Neena watched as his eyes lit up, his eyelids lifting over his deep green irises. Max’s lips were falling open in that pleasing way of his, the kind that almost begged to be explored with a tongue, a rough kiss, perhaps a finger jammed in to stop some errant moan from escaping without a fight. Softly, he said, “Not to _ just _ anybody?”

If Neena damned themselves or admitted to something without thinking about it they didn’t care, was too far gone by that point to salvage themselves. Or, rather, their persona as a removed, cold sex fiend. “Yes. I only want to fuck what’s mine.”

Max shuddered. At first Neena thought, as he leaned in close, that he was about to kiss them. Then, as if he were whispering a secret against their half closed lips, Max said, “I wanna be that for you. I  _ want  _ to be yours.”

At that moment, it didn’t matter that Max was older than them. That at least he used to be a holy man. How Neena used to be the promised heir to a diabolical company, then transformed into a promiscuous drifter. Neena wanted him, lusted for him for now as their mount, then some other time they wanted to be pinned down or worshipped by him. They wanted all of it with him—specifically. 

Neena closed the sinfully short distance between their lips, kissed him gently at first, then kissed more deeply as they felt him meeting their energy. Heard the soft moan in the back of his throat as Neena’s tongue snaked over his.

Both were grabbing onto one another, and Neena couldn’t recall who had touched the other one first. All that mattered was the sliding feel of Max’s laborer hands on their frame, on the bobbing, insistent poking of his dick against their abdomen and mid torso as they slid against each other. It was perfect;  _ he  _ was perfect. It felt like Neena was swimming in pheromones, in hunger, desire, lust so deep that Neena couldn’t help as their hands reached around Max, sliding down, past the lines of his hips, the small of his back, slipping like a secret through the valley of his sweet ass. 

He moaned softly against their lips, igniting a predatory, deep-seated instinct within Neena as they slid their fingers against the welcoming pucker of his hole. And it  _ was _ welcoming; Max, either instinctively or purposefully, sank back into their fingers. The ease that he slid into their fingers surprised Neena.

Could Max, perchance, have been practicing this vulgar dance all on his own?

Neena lost the chance they may have had to ask as he moaned, breaking away kissing, breathing in a ragged breath. “I have been so ready for this for so long.” He ducked his head, burying his face against the side of Neena’s neck, where they could feel him shiver. 

He didn’t draw away from their fingers. Instead, Max seemed to press against them. To Neena, he didn’t seem to just enjoy having his pucker teased; he relished the feeling of penetration.

It came to Neena, then, a realization that hardened their clit to an unbearable degree. He was a true switch, just like them. A treasure, rare, even if he was untested, unpracticed, inelegant in spite of his every attempt not to be. Not able to repress their own shudder, Neena teased inside of his pucker, spreading and sliding in, wanting to map and find every part of his lovely ass that made him quiver and shake. 

Such a pretty honey boy he was, as Max shook against them, submitting to Neena as easily as he had before dominated them. Not wanting to tear or hurt him, Neena pulled out slightly, tenderly slipping their fingertips against his pucker, having to take in a hiss of breath as Max made a sound that seemed damn close to disappointment, need. 

They needed to hear him say it, and said, “Tell me what you want.”

Letting out a soft, throaty gasp, Max dropped his face closer against their neck and he said, “Take my ass, make me feel full of you until I can’t take it anymore. Then, give me more.”

Neena couldn’t help it, thrust against Max, the feel of his chest bumping against their sensitized tits almost enough to make them moan. “What do you want me to fill you with?”

This time Max whimpered, and as if in answer, Neena felt his dick pulse, hot where it was pressed against their belly. “Y-your cock.”

Neena let out a surprised laugh. They had expected him to call it a dildo, even call it exactly what it was, which was a strap-on. But to hear him, referring to it as their  _ cock,  _ made Neena feel like their head was swimming in need. “You want me to fuck your ass, baby?” When he nodded against their neck, Neena growled, drew their other hand around, felt him jump in surprise as they took a greedy, brazen handful of his thick, tight ass. “You need to say it.”

Always full of surprises, Max bit out, “Damn it, I want you to fuck my ass,  _ Captain _ !”

That was it. Neena drew both of their hands on either one of his ass cheeks, grabbed onto him tight as they felt him draw in a deep, shocked breath before they even drew their right hand back and slapped him on the ass, relishing the way he let out a gasp. 

Letting go, Neena glanced at Max, taking in his wide eyes with no small amount of pride as they found the pile of sex aids that he had so dutifully brought for them. Eager, and not wanting to waste the first impression that he would get the moment he realized, saw in the most elemental way possible, that Neena was about to make his wish come true as they affixed the wicked looking harness on their hips, transforming Neena into someone that he had not met since the first time they had had sex.

Neena slipped the dildo into the harness, felt as soon as it slid and locked into place that it was no longer a dildo, it was, as Max had called it, their  _ cock.  _ Shivering in excitement, Neena ripped the condom package open and slid it down their mercilessly eager, thick pole, feeling the transformation overcoming them as they felt it, in their blood, what they wanted to do with it. 

They turned around, dropping the packet onto the ground in their cockpit, hand tight around the big, round container of thankfully plentiful lube. The look on their honey boy’s face was priceless.

Max looked overcome with desire, but not a fully eager kind. The kind that Neena could remember feeling whenever they were about to do the most exhilarating things they had ever done, the kind of things that were undoubtedly frightening but were also a near compulsion.

So sure that Max needed a push—and not just  _ that  _ kind—Neena felt the grin that had wanted to stretch across their lips grow. Then they walked towards him, drinking all of him in, his face, the expression in his eyes, his posture—the jutting, helpless movements of his own cock—in. He looked like how they felt, but was either too terrible at hiding it. Or didn’t care to.

Stopping just short of touching him, Neena dropped a hand to their hip, taking in the delicious array of emotions that expressed themselves on his face, in his eyes before they said a word. 

“Tell me what you want. How you want it.” Neena reached down, without thought stroking their condom-encased cock, imagining how they would use it on Max, inside Max.

He didn’t even hesitate, in spite of what Neena envisioned they saw in his eyes. “Make me feel good. Use me.”

If he was going to continue to be vague, then Neena knew they would need to just do what they wanted. What they both needed. 

"Turn around." When Max turned, Neena did as they had longed to, mouth watering in excitement as they returned the favor from earlier. Dropping to their knees, Neena took in the delicious sound of Max's shocked moan as much as they did the taste of him on their lips.

They grabbed onto either side of his ass, dragging their tongue against the tight slide to his boy pussy. Realized that he was as yummy as memory served him to be, the kind that returned from the sense memory of running the broad wedge of their tongue between his cheeks. Trapped sweat, a dark musk, and something that tasted distinctly like bottled arousal, might as well have been an aphrodisiac, one that had Neena instinctively cupping the artificial weight, shape of their heavy dick. 

Max let out an adorably helpless sound, and Neena felt him quiver and contract. But he relaxed quickly, easing apart like a young paramour did for the object of his deepest desires. Allowing Neena to take a lap, a flicker of their tongue over the place Max wanted to be used. Half of them wanted to enjoy this for its own pleasure; the other half of them were eager to ensure that Max DeSoto was wet, eager, and  _ lovingly  _ readied.

They slipped their tongue against the coquettish entrance, tracing a pleasure trail around the sweet pussy they longed, soon,  _ soon _ , to fuck. As they began to thoughtlessly, aggressively slide their hand down their dick, Max let his worn patience show.

"AH-pl-lease, I don't know how much more—"

Neena shot to their feet, relishing in the taste of the strange fruit they had sucked the juices from now worn on their mouth. Fighting the first impulse, to paint Max’s mouth with his own taste, Neena realized what they wanted more than that. Making sure that the tip of their cock “accidentally” slipped against him in passing, Neena strutted over to their chair and sat down in it, nude and sporting an artificially hard boner. They rose one knee up, pressing their foot down on the seat, loving the way they knew they must look, mirrored in the hungry, lustful look that was growing on Max’s rosy face. 

“Alright; now suck my dick, love.”

Max stared at them, surprise lighting his face up. But he only showed it for a moment before he came up to them, dropping to his knees. An eager, trusting supplicant.

Neena hasn’t realized that their mouth had fallen open as they watched him reach forward, gingerly slipping his lips over the tip of their smooth, silicone dick. To be honest, Neena mostly wanted to see how he looked, with a dick he had chosen for them in his mouth. But as Neena watched, a man who had only ever been with a female-bodied person slipped the dick past his lips, suctioned vigorously. Raising his eyes to meet theirs as he did it.

Neena shuddered, thrusting, unintentionally, into his mouth as though they could feel it. Sliding in and out of his mouth, Neena felt a grin stretch across their lips, feeling as if they had won the fucking lottery as they watched Max take it, his mouth opening to accomodate. It would have been too much for Neena to not slip their hand down, grazing the pebbled, dusky nipple that stood tight on her right tit.

They almost forgot that they had a voice, let alone a mouth to speak with. “You like that?”

They didn’t expect it when Max nodded, eyes closing as if he were savoring the feel and taste of their dick. And like anyone committed to giving good oral, he didn’t take his lips off to talk back, instead slipping his mouth down the condom-encased first few inches, like an explorer scouting out the line of farthest territory before he retreated, slipping his mouth down. He had gotten a nice, squishy-”fleshed” appendage for Neena to use, and it made a wonderful sound as he slurped on it.

Not that it stopped Neena from talking to him. “That’s it, love it, show me how much you want this. You liked shopping for your partner’s dick?”

He didn’t say anything, but Max rose his eyes up to meet theirs, a soft moan radiating from his throat down the length of their dick. How he had transformed, even from begging to be pegged. 

Max almost pulled loose. Max stopped, his lips wrapped around the flared head, suctioning until it made a lewd  _ pop.  _ With feigned innocence, he declared, "I learned it from  _ you _ , Captain."

And that was about the long and short of their patience.

It was now or never. They would see just how far Max was willing—needed to go. “Alright baby, why don’t you come over here and sit on your boyfriend’s lap then?”

That seemed to unloosen something that seemed to have been locked deep inside of him. He let out a deep breath, half-staggering to his feet, his eyes wide. Didn’t seem to notice as a line of drool broke between his lips and the dick he had been sucking. Neena wasn’t sure what he would say, do. Even in their growing sense of sinking into the role, the role that wasn’t, totally, a fabrication, not by a long shot, Neena wondered if this would be the moment when he would break, would stop all of this.

Instead, Max said, “But I’ll crush you.”

Neena sat back in their chair, lowering their foot onto the ground and resting their hands on the arm rests. As cool as they could manage, they said, “Baby, you won’t be sitting on my lap, unless you want this thing so deep in you you would think I’d fused to your ass.” They cocked an eyebrow at him.

The realization on his face was almost more delicious than anything that Neena had ever seen, and how he followed it by thoughtlessly sucking in his swollen lower lip left Neena arching up in an unintentional thrust. Max didn’t say a single word more, he closed the distance to Neena, and in a single, excited but undoubtedly still uncertain expression, Neena saw something else other than Max, at least, the Max that  _ they _ knew.

They saw, flashing before them like a true vision and not a memory that had just come loose in an instant, the way that Max had looked when Neena had emerged from the chest in that room so long ago, the dildo—soon to be their cock—in their hand.

He looked exactly like he did then. Like he was seeing something for the first time that was a missing puzzle piece, not just for his sexuality, but his intimate sense of himself. Like he saw something he never even knew existed, but understood, instinctively, that it would transform him.

That memory, and everything that came with it, came crashing into Neena anew, like it was the first time they had done it. He needed them, needed this chance at losing his control. Needed it as frequently as Neena wanted to, wanted also to have him filling them, biting their flesh to mark them up as his. 

They remembered the way he so easily gave, letting Neena ride him, his first time with another person penetrated, not for a moment, after some admittedly loving teasing and readying, begging for Neena to stop or take it slower. 

As Max, no longer in their memory but in their cockpit, stood in front of their sitting Captain, naked, Neena buried their shock and hungry desire by looking at him meaningfully and said, “You’re gonna need to show me how much you want it.”

Max’s mouth fell open, and instead of talking to them as he would have previously done, instead Max leaned over and took Neena’s lips with his own, kissing them with this desperate passion that Neena didn’t expect. By the time he pulled away, Neena almost forgot that they were even an individual, drowsily believing that they had become one with the beautiful man. 

Still close to their face, in kissing distance, Max said, “I want it.”

Neena slipped back, almost intoxicated by the familiar, delicious smell that came off of him. “Do you need some more playing, or—”

Max surprised them anew, leaning down and grabbing onto the dildo, sliding his hand down it, the jutting shape ceasing to be a piece of silicone, but was now Neena’s dick. He looked them deeply into their eyes, said, “I’ve had some… practice, homework, too. And I don’t think I can stand to wait much longer.” And, before Neena could become too struck by the thought of Max riding this dick on his own (thinking, fantasizing of them on the other end of it) as if seeing the lapse in dominance in them, Max added, “I am… ready for you. I feel like I’ve never wanted… no,  _ needed, _ anything more in my life.”

Well, this would be sure to test that. Neena met his hand on their spit-shined dick, gently squeezed his hand. “I know we’ve done this already—” seeing something, a need in his eyes for them to not hesitate, to worry. Quickly, Neena said, “turn around.”

They might have been imagining it, but there was something, a gratefulness that seemed to light up his eyes, as the delicious sight of Max’s front was replaced with the sight of his ass, his broad shoulders from the back. When Max leaned back, pressing the curve in the center of his ass against the tip of Neena’s dick, they had to grab onto his hips, relishing the little jumping tick of the muscles in his hips. 

“Now, baby, you can’t ride without some lubrication, spit won’t do.” At least, with an ass they wanted to show their devotion to. Neena opened up the container of lube and slathered a nice glob of it down their pole. Chuckling, Neena readied themselves, prodded his puckerhole with their condom-encased, slickened dick. “Get your ass over here, show me how much you want this dick.”

Max said nothing, just moaned and slipped back, letting Neena guide him onto the silicone dick. As promised, he was indeed ready to go. That tip that he had sucked on earlier slipped inside of him as easily as if it were Neena’s fingers.

He moaned even louder, got to a certain amount inside of him, then stopped. Neena could feel the reverberations of him around the dildo, the way he shook. Could practically feel his eagerness, his frustration. Neena knew his need as much as they also wanted to see it all of the way inside of him; knew how it felt to want to surround someone entirely, to be filled by them. 

What a beautiful sight he made, all muscular back sliding down to hips, a full, tight ass that begged for attention.

Still, they sat up in their chair carefully, trying to control their lust, their desire. “Take your time. This is all about you.” They didn’t stop themselves from reaching forward, hand slipping around and cupping the shape of one of his muscular ass cheeks.

Max let out a deep breath, threw his head back in a movement that, from behind, lit Neena up with a fresh hunger. “I don’t know… uh… if I can…”

Instead of doing what Neena wanted to do, which was rear up and take that ass, they closed their eyes and tried to find a center of peace inside of themselves. They needed it, needed to be the steady hand. And, Neena opened their eyes, looked at the place where Max was connected to them, speared on their dick, they needed to make sure that the big tool he had found for them would not tear him up, bruise him in spite of his earlier promise that he had practiced with it.

With a long groan, Neena positioned their weight more on their knees, focused on remaining still, making sure their ass wouldn’t fall asleep on them. They took a swipe of the lube from the tin they had sat on the arm rest, slicked it at where Max’s ass met the dildo. It all felt too natural to them, hardly warranting more than a thought as though it were instinct.

They repeated their earlier refrain, grateful that they had cum earlier, even though their need was encompassing, devouring. “Take all the time you need, honey boy.”

Max re-adjusted, reaching back to sit the heel of his hands on either side of Neena’s hips. He sighed, and, surprisingly, Neena watched as the man took some of the freshly slicked length of the dildo more into his ass. “I bet you wish I was as… patient as you are.”

Them,  _ patient _ ? Neena laughed at that, shaking their head even though there was no way he could not see the expression on their face. “I don’t know about that. I like seeing how  _ helpless _ I can make you.” Neena looked down at their dick, and added, “There’s nothing like the feel of the real thing sliding inside of you. Connecting you to the man it belongs to.”

Max slid further down the dildo, engulfing the portion that Neena had freshly lubed up. “No offense to your predi…” Max moaned, swallowing up whatever he was about to say before he found his voice anew. “ _ Preferences _ . I prefer  _ this _ .”

Neena was grateful he couldn’t see the stupid, wide grin that had formed on their mouth. “Well, that’s good news. You don’t have to try to take all of this big thing, you can make that little rim stretch, it’ll still feel real good.”

They almost thought that Max would argue with them, then he lifted almost free of the dildo, clutching onto the tip of it with his ass. He slipped back down, taking only half of what he had taken before. 

It was odd. The only norm that Neena could remember from any of the times that they had bent a man over to love in this manner was that they seemed to take direction almost to an extreme end, hardly doing a thing without their approval. But, even though it seemed at first that Max would start taking this slowly, before Neena knew what was happening, the man was working himself loose, sliding up and down the dildo, lifting his hips up and down insatiably. 

Stunned, Neena watched as Max took his pleasure, seeming to gain speed with each thrust he pumped back and onto them. Heard his gasp, his soft vocalizations, left Neena wishing that they could see his face, the wonder they could remember being in his eyes when they had fucked him their first time together. 

They watched as his muscular ass pumped up and down the condom-encased dick, and Neena snapped out of their surprise as they realized that they ought to lube up a bit more of their dildo, or else lose the rhythm that the man had fallen into. At this point, Neena knew that he was exorcizing so much stress and need on them, and all Neena could do was make sure that he didn’t hurt himself with the big toy he was playing with and that he kept it going until he found some satiation.

So Neena kept them lubed up and softly willed him on, murmuring gentle profanity to him, almost feeling all of his wordless vocalizations through their dick in his ass, enamored of the man taking his pleasure on top of them, in control and yet at their mercy. Wild, beautiful.

Neena didn’t know how long they had watched, transfixed as Max had rocked his way on and off of the silicone dick, but it felt like a blissfully long time before Neena fell out of the dom headspace to them pinning a too willing Max against the control panel, pulling and pushing nearly the full length of their dildo inside of him, slamming into the silicone saddle as the gentled shock against their labia sent a wave of pleasure to their sensitized clit. He had come before, whimpering that had turned into a full cry. He could still go for more, and both of their bodies seemed to know it.

Neena and Max worked in tandem, not only with the dildo but with his dick, with both wrapping a hand around him, slick with more lube and the still wet remnant of his earlier orgasm.

Neena was lost in the moment, rocking inside of him and rocking their hand on his dick in conjunction with his hand. It was intoxicating, fucking Max in here after all, taboo and wonderful. Sometimes Neena dropped their head back, so turned on to feel his need for them around them and wrapped up in their hand that they realized where they were anew when they saw the viewer window above and witnessed the glint of stars. 

They could have done this forever, or at least all night, if Max didn’t drop his head back and call out, “N… Neena… I’m gonna cum again.”

Neena closed the distance between their upper bodies, pressing their achingly hard nipples to his back, kissing the back of his neck. “Cum for me, baby, honey boy, show me how much you need me.”

Max let out a gasp and met Neena’s slow, heavy, thrusts, his hand desperate as it slid up and down his dick. Neena let go of him to slide their hands to either side of his hips. They let Max set the pace he needed, giving him every needed thrust, feeling him stroking himself frantically. 

Neena felt the words come from them as their hand found the tip of his hard, thick dick, said, “I want you to come on me so much, Max.”

He let out a choke, and Neena felt him fall back, nearly engulfing their dick as his burst, cumming into Neena’s hand, thankfully not on the control panel.

Amidst the strange release of pressure that Neena felt, even though it had not been them who had cum, the first thought that managed to come through, amidst the sensation of being connected to Max, who was heaving for breath, half-collapsed against the panel, deliciously sweaty, was:  _ I am just glad I don’t have to explain to ADA why there’s an ex-Vicar’s cum that SAM would need to clean out of their circuits. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are pretty strange at the moment. Weird in the outside world, and weird for me as well. I hope all of you are staying safe, keeping your wits about you. You don't need to hear it from a smutfic writer, but I think I've been honest here, so let me say that I hope things are better in a few months, and a lot better with a regime that's in place that calls antifa a "terrorist organization" out of office. I mean, if my personal beliefs aren't obvious with the subject matter I write... what, do you need a red flag, because here it is. Anti-fascism is pegged as terroristic while systematic oppression and bigotry, matched with ultra macho violence, is in no way the problem. Welcome to a past facts world, at least when the facts don't serve a wanna be monarch.
> 
> But we're all in the afterglow here, so let's bring it down now. I love writing sex scenes, intimate scenes in general, and any chance I can get to write them differently than I have ever seen them or have had a chance to do, I do. In my whole body of work, I have never actually written much in the way of anal play, let alone pegging. I hope I've written it well, that's all I have the courage to say *blushes like I'm being hugged by Max* 
> 
> Original work-wise, I am one scene closer to the end of part 1 of 4, and I am eager to start writing good intimate scenes like, well, this one, here. The build up is amazing to read, but it is agonizing to write, if you've never had the chance to write it yourself.
> 
> Eheu, good friends, see you next week!


	25. 24. Halcyon Breakaway

For once, Neena managed to find themselves after they had had sex with Max without any strange regrets or embarrassing incidents involving any other crew members who did not need to know what Neena or Max got up to in their private time together. No matter what anybody said to them. 

Well, with the exception of ADA, who did not seem very pleased with either member of their ship's crew when she was turned back on as Max had been struggling into his clothes.

Still, once Neena was back in their bedroom, alone, they realized that even the thought that they didn't have any regrets about what they and Max had done wasn't entirely true. In fact, as Neena laid back in bed and stared at the souvenirs that they had put up there, not only was their mind preoccupied with him, but even the sight of the reminders of the places they had gone in the Halcyon system brought him to mind as well. How often he had been there with them, how different Neena had thought of him in those times.

A hindrance, a reluctant rebel. A stuck up choir boy.

Neena cursed themselves for how stupid they had been. After all, it had not happened before, but they should not have been so conceited as to not realize that people were so rarely what they first seemed. They were angry, also, how they were not immune to an emotion as characteristically human as they were feeling. Choosing to spend time, an inordinately large amount of time, with him out of their choice of other crew members, and then deciding to give into their every bad desire with Max, had been a masterful stroke of self-sabotage.

Without meaning to say it to anyone but themselves, Neena threw their head into their pillow and called out, “I am _not_ going to be someone’s wifey!”

Fittingly, ADA responded, saying, “I don’t think that kind of decision is usually made without your consent _first_ , Captain.”

Neena moaned, slamming their eyes shut. “I wish you had a heart. And a cunt. You deal with this shit for a day, see if _you_ can have a dry sense of humor.”

The A.I chose that moment to remain silent.

* * *

It was a few days after, and unless ADA needed them or they had to use the controls—or speak to Welles—Neena was purposefully avoiding the cockpit. Trying to hide in what was left of the tattered remains of their pride and self image as a carefree Captain. The only problem was that it seemed that Neena kept feeling compelled back to the rooms that they could not divorce themselves from recalling fucking Max in.

Nevertheless, even preoccupied as they were trying, so desperately, not to think about Max, Neena was bothered by other things as well.

Such as what the hell they were going to do, in the light of Phineas dragging them closer and closer to what they had been feeling, deep in their bones, as the end of the line of their days of freedom, even if they managed to still be alive at the end of all of this mess. After all, Welles had told them that what he needed was on Byzantium, a veritable dragon’s hoard of dimethyl sulfoxide. Even if Neena could have envisioned breaking away from how entangled they had become with the lost souls aboard _The_ _Hope,_ it seemed as though the life and the persona they had grown with their crew members into was to be pulling them into some of the most selfless behavior that someone like them had ever shown.

Especially in light of one crew member in particular.

Sat in one of the dining chairs to brood over their Spacer’s Choice notebook pages, Neena was really wondering how many more carefree adventures they had left on this ship, where all of them could live together with relatively little renown or, more appropriately, infamy. Tossball matches, drinking together, stupid movie nights, sunning themselves on the roof of their stolen ship with their girlfriends. 

Fucking so hard and primally that it could never be construed as “love making”.

Neena knew that whatever came after what they hoped would be their final mission for the rogue scientist-turned-would-be-savior of _The Hope_ , that their lives—every member of their crew—would change. 

Was it so wrong to want just one more trip to some place, where all they would have to think about was making sure they didn’t take a bullet to the head? Why did their life have to return them to a world they once escaped like it had been a death sentence; a world of politics and backdoor company dealing?

They were set far back in their chair, trying to see the to-do list that was looking, distressingly, smaller and smaller with each passing day as a list of things to do. Not as a promise of losing the only people, thus far, that they had grown to care about.

They heard him enter the room, knew that it was only a matter of time before he came over to them. Didn’t know if they dreaded or yearned for it, even after all that had happened between them.

Sure enough Max walked over until he was almost standing directly behind them before he spoke. “Is there anything I can do to help my Captain today? Perhaps I could provide some dictation, or I could accompany you somewhere to blow some steam off.” He said it in a soft, almost cooing voice.

Neena’s hand clenched around the pen that they were holding. Keeping their eyes trained on the paper in front of them, as if the black lines of letters and the expanse of white and pale blue lines could keep their mind steady where his close presence might threaten to cause a mental revolt, Neena softly said, “Max, _c’mon—_ ”

Proof of how close they were, even perhaps that they had shared a mind for a night, was how he chuckled, said, “Now, not everything I say is supposed to be taken as a double entendre. I was thinking more about actually trying some stretching exercises or some meditation. I have been looking into the benefits of an old Earth practice called yoga, which has a bad reputation for its supposed anti-Scientician leanings as well as how it was once used heavily by women—”

Neena shifted in their seat, the stress of their situation and his continued distraction of a presence wearing down on them before they just had to interrupt the man. “I’m fine. Just trying to think of what to do next.”

“What is there to think about? I think we’ve come far enough, there’s only one thing I could think of for us to do next.”

Neena froze, hand poised around their pen as they feigned being about to write something. Was he telling them what they thought he was telling them? Or maybe they were imagining it—

“After all, I thought all of this was for them, _The Hope’s_ colonists.”

Neena opened their mouth, suddenly grateful that he couldn’t see the look on their face. Damn it, were they relieved, or were they disappointed? “Yeah. I just—I thought it wouldn’t hurt to blow some steam off—” Neena stopped, realizing that they had repeated what Max had offered earlier. As they regained their ability to form words, Neena promised themselves that if they got out of this that they would never fuck a counselor again. His uncanny ability to get into their thoughts had to be at least part of the cause for why they couldn’t keep a straight head around him. That, and the mind melding incident, of course. “I mean, I’m sure we’re all not against getting some extra bits, right?”

They waited for Max to speak—shamefully, Neena was honestly curious about his opinion, some guidance. He said, hesitantly, “I’m sure of that, but at some point certain… _considerations_ become more important than earning a living, or a fortune.”

Christ, did Neena start believing that, as well? That there were more important things than having money, their freedom, even if it meant being isolated from other people? From a person, even—especially—like Max?

Neena cleared their throat. “Well, I don’t think that this mission’s going to change too much. I’m not—I mean, things’re just gonna keep going like normal afterward, right?” They forced a laugh out of their mouth.

This time the pause Max took before he spoke felt like it said something that he didn’t say aloud. “Your hair’s a mess, Captain. Mind if I were to remedy that for you?”

Neena sat up in their chair, turned around, finally, to look at him, at the brown-haired man who stood, his hands in his pockets. _When did he go from a man whose cynicism was, somehow, worse than mine, into the kind of man that I am a bad influence on?_ “ _What_ is your deal, why do you care so much about my hair?”

Max shrugged. “Just want to assist where I can. And I can’t help but notice that you seemed happier when I braided your hair.” He shrugged. “Out of the stranger things we’ve shared, I don’t see how me braiding your hair is _so_ extraordinary.”

Neena fought to keep from running their fingers through their hair reflexively. Something—the memory of him finishing the job he had done on their hair by tugging them on their braid—threatened to seized them and never let go. “You have a strange fetish, counselor.” Neena had to stop themselves, also, from wincing. They hadn’t meant to keep referring to that—other thing—that they weren’t excited for the rest of _The Unreliable’s_ crew to know about, if they happened to be in earshot.

Max smiled softly at them, looking so good, standing there with this aura of gentle expectation, that Neena almost gave up everything that they had been thinking about and asked him to just put them out of their misery, back in one of their rooms. Neena sank further down into their chair, recalling, also, how it did feel to have their hair in a braid of Max’s devising. 

“Alright, sure, go ahead.” They turned around, hoping that Max couldn’t see a telltale blush on their face. 

Max stood behind them, and Neena didn’t realize that they were holding their breath until they released it as they felt his hands glancing against their freed hair, the feel of the calloused texture of his palms softly crackling against the soft weight of their hair, a sweet pleasure.

* * *

ADA seemed to pause, somehow, before they repeated what Neena had ordered. “Take us down to Monarch?”

Sat finally in the chair that Neena had far too many memories of sharing with Max, Neena looked at their A.I’s display, saw the look of incredulous disbelief on ADA's face. Knew that it would likely be mirrored in the face of any of their crew members they would tell their plan to. Wished that they didn’t know too well themselves why that look was being given to them. 

“Down to the coordinates I gave you, yes.”

“What about Phin—”

Neena waved their hand in front of them, interrupted, “Can we not talk about that man, for once?” When it was obvious that ADA was going to tell them why it was that they could not stop considering Welles, Neena added, “I’m not abandoning anything. Way I heard it, we’re not in some big fucking rush. The colonists are always going to be out there, the consistency of frozen soup.” Irritated, Neena leaned over and gazed at their notebook, kept propped up on the panel next to the chair. They had already done what felt like a lifetime’s worth of work in this system. 

But it wasn’t as if Neena was ready to stop. 

Perhaps sensing her Captain’s irritability and unwillingness to discuss it, ADA said, “Alright. We will be landing in the coordinates you specified shortly. I recommend assembling a landing party in the meanwhile. And you get to tell everyone that we’re not going to Byzantium.”

Neena shut their eyes, hissed out, “We’re not going to Byzantium— _yet_.”

As the Captain rose out of their chair and started out of the cockpit, ADA added, “I also wanted to tell you that the braid looks good on you.”

Neena stopped, then turned to look back at the display panel. At the knowing, smug look on ADA’s generated face. Not stopping themselves before they could say it, Neena asked, “What do you care?”

Her face not changing, ADA said, “I think crewmember Max DeSoto has a true knack for taming your hair.”

Neena growled, had to calm themselves so that they weren’t stomping up the stairs, up to the crew’s quarters. As they stomped past Max’s quarters, Neena could imagine him looking out at them questioningly. Perhaps with a small amount of spite, Neena walked instead over to Ellie’s room and said, “Hey, we’re gonna go make some more money and loot from an abandoned warehouse on Monarch.”

The woman, who had been sitting on her bed and looking at her tablet, looked up at them. Perhaps Neena was only imagining it, but the woman seemed to hesitate before she said one of her normal refrains. “Can’t ever say no to loot and bits.”

Neena shoved their unease as deep inside of themselves as they could before they made for the room of the other person who possibly still had a straight head as well. “Hey, Ny—”

To their surprise, the bounty hunter was already walking out of her room, eyes less glassy than they normally were, a grin on her lips as she walked past Neena down the hall Neena had just walked through. “Already on it when I heard “Monarch”.”

Neena felt the first genuine smile that they could muster all day growing on their mouth. _At least one of these people_ gets _it._ They walked after Nyoka, eager to pull armor and a blessed helmet on for some fun wetwork, the kind where they could extricate a group of poor, lost souls from loot that was rightfully theirs. 

As they were pulling their gear on, even with Ellie putting her game face on, Neena was aware that they were being stared at. Looking up, Neena caught the unintentional eye contact of someone that they had not realized had been standing there.

Max stood at the top stair, a hand resting on the railing, one eyebrow raised in a silent question. His eyes seemed to be asking them the question that he wasn’t.

Neena coughed, looking down and away from him. As they threw their pack over their shoulder, grabbed ahold of their candy-teal customized Rizzo’s fin-topped helmet and slammed it on their head into place, Neena felt oddly as if with their face hidden so that they didn’t have to try to keep their emotions from being so openly visible, they could breathe freely.

* * *

They had made their way through the warehouse and the whole time it felt like nothing had changed, that they were doing nothing more than going through some ruins of the first generation of Halcyon-hopeful communities like they had since awakening in the Halcyon system.

“So, tell me,” Ellie said, walking out from behind Neena, stepping casually over the corpse of a woman who had been wearing a mismatch of old miner’s gear and light armor. “When do we get to start feeling like we’re not the kids of some real dirty divorce between you and ol’ Vicky?”

Neena scoffed, shaking their head as they scanned the hallway that they had just cleared out. Bending down to search the pack of another raider, they said, “Nice to hear that you consider us your parents.”

Ellie let out a fake laugh. “You do love to misdirect when it comes to him, don’t you?” When Neena didn’t answer, pulling the contents of the pack out, trying to figure out what was worth keeping and what they should leave on the ground for the next inevitable group of raiders who would go through the warehouse, the woman said, “I get falling into puppy love must be _real_ weird for a hardass, but it’s getting _real_ old by this point. I mean, it is intriguing that you managed to turn a man of the cloth into the ways of the flesh, and you happen to be the lost Urraca heir, but I’m always looking for the next adventure, and that story’s getting real stale.”

Been getting _real_ , has it? 

Neena sighed, closing their eyes, midway in putting a box of caffeine capsules into the bag they used to keep any meds they came across. Nowadays, they were more likely to sell any of the drugs or meds they found than to use them. Life, after all, had already gotten a lot more complicated without any drugs to add to it. “If this is all so boring to you, Ellie, maybe you should consider moving on, then.”

Expecting the woman to give them a snide comment or perhaps sound annoyed with them, Ellie instead walked past them, over to another corpse which she gave a light, ineffectual kick to. “Not “move on”, we need to move _forward_.”

Not expecting Nyoka to interject, Neena watched as the bounty hunter strode closer to Ellie, turning to look at the crouched Captain, her arms crossed over her chest. “You know me: I never get tired of a good hunt. But stuff like this?” She clicked her tongue to her teeth and shook her head. “Back when we had to get some capital and a lead, this kind of work was acceptable. Now, it’s kinda… beneath us, dontcha think?”

Neena got to their feet, purposefully acting like they were busy examining the bit card that the corpse had hidden, rubber banded to their belt. “ _Beneath us_ ? Did I or did I not find _you_ , wasted in a bar?”

Nyoka feigned being jarred, then laughed. “Ooh, tough words, coming from the person who got high as fuck with the ship’s Vicar and then—”

Ellie walked over to the other woman, interrupting her. “Damn, where do you _think_ we are? I’m sure most of the people on Monarch get together drunk off their asses or with a headful of drugs.” As Nyoka sighed and rose her hands up as if in mock surrender, Ellie continued, turning to look at Neena. “When are we gonna go do what we’ve been leading towards?”

Neena ignored her, walking down the hall, ready to shoot the next thing they would see moving. Normally, Neena would have hoped that they wouldn’t have to deal with some Monarch crazies looking to fill their life with murder, mayhem, and loot. Now, they only hoped that they could find one more nutjob to deal with, if only to take some of their frustration out on. One more fight before they had to go back to _The Unreliable_ and deal with reality.

Stupid reality.

Before they had a chance to butt the barrel of their rifle against the door button, Nyoka said, “You know, there’s a sort of person they talk about here on Monarch. The kind who get addicted to the process, to the thrill. Almost dying, hunting out in the wilds, doesn’t matter what the target is. Gonners. Like, they’re always gone, then there’s the last time you see ‘em alive, then they’re just _gone_.”

Neena smashed the barrel of their rifle into the door button, got ready to deal with whatever would be on the other side of the door. As soon as they glanced into it, Neena realized that they had hit the end of the line. That there was no one to take their anger out on. 

As soon as that realization crossed their mind, it was as if a switch had been turned off in them. The bloodlust faded, and all they were left with was a sense of emptiness. Emptiness and shame. 

Neena feigned walking over to a fallen shelf to look behind it, resting with their hand on it as they tried to get their thoughts straight. They had lost their cool, and when Neena _lost their cool_ they were liable to make mistakes. And decisions they would always end up regretting. 

Of course, Ellie spoke up as Neena was trying to get her head back on straight, walking up behind them. “Great, so, we’re done here? Can we get back to the ship already, because I’m _so_ over Monarch—”

Neena snapped, getting back up to their feet. “What the hell happened to you people? When I picked you up, you were ready for an adventure. You guys like to talk about my past, but you know what? It’s like a _century_ ago, you know. I’m not attached to any of it. You, on the other hand, have a mom and a dad that you’ve never let go of.” Neena tilted their head to the side, forgetting that there was a helmet obscuring their face, which hid the anger in their eyes. “I ran away from home and I never went back. Never. Everything I’ve done is to make a new life for myself. To follow the _adventure_.” They turned, looked at Nyoka as well before they added, “If anyone doesn’t want to come with me, then I will take you wherever you want to go to drop you off.”

Ellie crossed her arms over her chest, eyes like ice cold chips of blue. “You don’t mean that. You’ve never been happier than the time we’ve spent together, all of us. Even if you don’t want to admit it. Least of all to the guy you’re in _love with.”_

Nyoka held her hands out, eyes wide. “Whoa, let’s all calm down. Shit.”

Neena ignored the bounty hunter, instead staring their ship’s sawbones down. Finally, sick of the weight of the helmet on their head, Neena pulled it off and loose, holding it at their hip as they glared at Ellie. “You smug asshole. _You_ —think you know everything about me?”

Ellie scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Of course I do.”

“How the fuck do you figure that?”

Enraging Neena, Ellie didn’t look at all bothered by what was rapidly becoming an argument. Instead, Ellie smirked, said, “In many ways we’re like the same person. Ego maniacs. Means it’s real fucking hard for us to get along.” She sighed, raising her hand up to her head. “But I know that it’s hard to accept anything outside of our comfort zone.”

Neena felt their lips set on their mouth, tight. They forgot every supposed reason that they had come to the warehouse to begin with, walking out of the room, past their two crew members. Now they just wanted to get back to their room, cross this stupid expedition off of their list of things to do. And at this point, they were just sick of feeling pushed into being told who they were, what they should do. What they should want.

Sliding the helmet back onto their head, Neena said, “If any of you keep having a problem with me, then, once we get back to the ship you should get your shit in a box. I can take you personally back to Groundbreaker, or I can take you any fucking else place you want to go. Maybe back to Byzantium where you can try to drain your parents of whatever it is they have left. Go find someone else to take up space in _their_ ship.”

One of the women was yelling at them but Neena was past listening. They walked out of the warehouse, barely cognizant in their rage even of the possibility that they could be attacked by one of the many types of fauna of Monarch. They were walking down the broken path, ten feet from the warehouse, when Nyoka yelled after them.

Neena hesitated, considered just walking the rest of the distance to _The Unreliable_ without stopping. Something stalled them in their tracks; part of it, mostly, admittedly, because Neena honestly didn’t relish the thought of going very far in the wilds of Monarch without a gun to watch their back. Sighing, Neena turned, watching as the bounty hunter finished walking the distance to them. 

Nyoka, like any good hunter worth her salt, had a rifle ready in her hands, but she had what looked like the closest thing that Neena had ever seen to heavy emotion on her face.

That look on her face cooled some of their temper. 

With a sigh, Neena asked, “What is it?”

Nyoka sniffed. “Personally, I don’t wanna go back to living here, permanently. I don’t mind visiting from time to time, putting a bullet in something for old time’s sake. But shit, I don’t mind getting the smell out of my hair, my clothes.” She paused, then seemed to sink lower, slumping down. “I don’t know where I’m gonna end up, eventually, but for now, I’m with you, wherever you go. That ship’s been the closest I’ve felt to something like a family since I used to run around with my unit.”

“And? What’s your point?”

Nyoka’s eyes grew warm and she smiled, awkwardly. “I don’t think we need to go separating, least of all before we go and get those chemicals for that crazy ass old man. And, call it being the opinion of someone who’s had to have more bullets pulled outta them and animal bites treated than you can _hope_ to count, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to piss off the sawbones. I mean, I’ve seen limb atrophy in real life from a lack of medical attention. You do _not_ want to see that in real life, up close and personal.”

Neena had started to feel increasingly more of their anger leave them as they listened to Nyoka speak. She was right; Neena wasn’t ready to say good bye to their drunken, sharp-shooting friend. And, hell, they were sure, in an hour, when they were less pissed off at her, that Neena wouldn’t want Ellie to leave the ship. 

Hesitating, Neena slid their own rifle onto their back strap, then removed their helmet to look the bounty hunter in the eyes, but stopped, pressing a gloved finger to her eyes, rubbing them. “I thought _The Unreliable_ was a way of freeing us from being weighed down by this fucking system.” Neena pulled their fingers away from their eyes and gazed at Nyoka. “Is it so wrong to not want to give into Halcyon’s just… unending darkness, trying to be happy?”

Nyoka whistled, throwing her head back as she let out a loud laugh. Looking back at her, the bounty hunter, grinning, said, “Does it look like I’m the kinda person you should be asking advice from? I just wanna know when the next expedition is, or where my next bottle of booze is coming from.”

Neena felt a smile slipping on their mouth. They had to fight to suppress a laugh. “Remember a few weeks back? Wherever you find your next bottle, be sure to share it with me.” When Nyoka, grinning, nodded, Neena remembered that they weren’t alone. Or at least, hadn’t been. “So… where did the sawbones go, anyway?”

Nyoka shrugged. “Best I can figure is she went back to the ship.”

Neena, remembering their own decision to hear Nyoka out because they didn’t enjoy the idea of wandering alone through Monarch wilderness, pulled their helmet back on and nodded at Nyoka. “I think we need to go catch up with her.” They shrugged. “I’ll strangle her later.”

“Deal.”

* * *

Ellie huffed, taking in a heavy drag of that less than fresh Monarch air. She wanted to shoot something, but even in her current, enraged condition, she knew that being alone on Monarch wasn’t the best thing for her, as long as she wanted to keep breathing even this disgusting air. She would have to settle for taking potshots in the workshop, whether or not ADA enjoyed it.

She was hardly aware that she was talking to herself, her voice above a mutter as she said every enraged thing that bothered her. “Yeah, _sure_ , sure thing _Captain;_ “I” rely on my family, well, _you_ rely on us, and no one buys your emotionless schtick—see if you can get me to watch your back from now on, talking to me like I’m a—”

Ellie never got the chance to finish that thought. Something connected with her back, hard, thankfully just missing her kidneys, but sending her to the ground. As she crouched on the ground, trying to catch her breath, Ellie considered her options and, almost thoughtlessly, made a grab for her revolver, ready to pot shot the offender who had just hit her until they were full of enough holes that they could double as a goddamn colander.

Ellie whipped around, sitting on the ground and pointing her gun up towards the direction of whomever had knocked them down in one smooth move. Realized as they were about to take their first shots, hand at the ready to bring the hammer down with familiar, quick action, that there was no way that she could shoot her way out of this situation alone.

Over ten raiders huddled over her, the ones not in makeshift helmets leering at her.

Feigning all of the bravery that had very suddenly failed her, Ellie smiled at her unexpected visitors, placing the hand that still clutched her revolver in her hand to the side of her face. “Now, is this the most polite way to spring a surprise party on someone?”

At first Ellie expected—fully expected—a raider to point a gun and put a bullet in her. She was surprised when the raiders parted, allowing a large person in heavy armor to cut through them to stand in front of Ellie. At first Ellie didn’t realize, couldn’t believe that it was a female, until she removed the helmet that covered her head and looked down at her. 

She was an older woman, and it was almost impossible to guess how old she was even for how seamed and sun burnt her face was, but some of the grey in the hair at her temples gave a hint that she was likely over fifty. 

The enormous raider grinned down at Ellie, said, “Oh, not for _you_ , girlie. This is a surprise party for all of your friends on that ship of yours.”

Ellie felt her smile slip off of her mouth. “I’m not letting you on that.”

The woman nodded, as if considering what Ellie said thoughtfully before she got down on her knees. As she spoke, the woman’s breath, a true miasma-like wave of death, blew across Ellie’s face, making her wish she could cover her nose and mouth. “You let us onto that ship of yours, else we do it the hard way. And the _hard way_ starts with me,” she reached behind her and pulled loose the long rifle that had been slung on her shoulder, motioned to Ellie. “breaking your pretty little kneecaps. Just smashin’ ‘em like little baby twigs.”

Ellie drew back, recoiling from the foul smell of the woman’s breath, tried to force a smile back on her face. “Oh, let you _onto_ the ship? I misheard you. Yeah, you can come onto the ship!”

The woman grinned at that, revealing a broken smile full of missing teeth. “Now, _that’s_ more like it.” As the woman helped—forced—Ellie back to her feet, taking the revolver from her before the doctor could realize what she was doing. “I’m gon’ pat you down, don’t want you doin’ something either a us will regret, right?”

And Ellie, in a shock, let the raider pat her down, pulling her other revolver out of its holster, then found the knife she always carried before Ellie could even think about pulling a fast sleight of hand and get her knife or other gun. It happened before the woman could even realize it but she was unarmed and being led back to the ship. Ellie managed to twist around, half hoping that she could see Neena coming up behind them, ready to run an ambush.

When Ellie looked behind her and realized that she could see no one, she was left to think, _What the hell are these stupid assholes going to do to everyone on the ship?_ And, in spite of how angry she was at their Captain, she also thought, _Am I ever going to see Neena or Nyoka again?_

* * *

Walking back the path they went, Neena and Nyoka had a rare moment alone together to talk outside of the ship. Although they were in a rush to try to catch up with Ellie, it was relieving to talk to someone who understood the fun of partying and extreme violence, and without realizing it, Neena had slowed their earlier brisk path back to the ship to laugh and keep a conversation going with her. 

As they came up the hill that led to the landing pad, Neena was telling a story of their old Earth days in a bid to top a wild story that Nyoka was telling them. Choking back a laugh, Neena happened to look up towards the landing pad when they saw movement up there.

Expecting to see Ellie, perhaps glowering at them from the stairs, they instead saw some goon that they didn’t recognize walking up the stairs, then across the landing pad. In shock, Neena watched as the heavily armored person walked up _The Unreliable_ ’s stairs. Then watched as they opened the ship’s door and walked inside.

Neena didn’t realize that they had pulled their rifle loose and was clutching it until Nyoka grabbed their hand, forcing them to look at her. 

“Hey, we can’t go _charging_ in there.”

It felt like the world was closing in around them until Neena came to from Nyoka whacking them across the face. Neena shook their head, pressing their hand to the right side of their face, which stung from where the woman had hit them. 

Gasping, Neena rubbed at the spot. “Thanks.” They looked at their ship, realizing that the person who had gone into _The Unreliable_ was not the only person who was wandering around the landing pad.

At least five thugs walked from where they had been standing behind the ship, and it was only by sheer luck that they must not have seen the two people walking towards the landing pad. As soon as Neena saw them, something clicked in them, and the ship’s Captain grabbed onto their crew member and dragged the bounty hunter behind the orange rock face that was thankfully plentiful on Monarch.

Crouched down, Neena half-expected to hear one of the less subtle of all of the kinds of people that Neena had ever found, in the form of Monarch thugs, to come screaming around the bend, ready to kill them. When that didn’t happen Neena dropped their head and groaned. 

Their ship. Their _crew_. 

Max—

Before they had any chance to think about why that thought specifically crossed their mind, Nyoka interrupted that stream of desperate, horrified thinking. “Well, damn. We’re gonna have to get rid of that infestation now, or else.”

Neena looked at her, still too stunned to catch onto what the woman meant. “Or... what?”

Nyoka let out a pained chuckle. “We don’t stop them, soon enough they’ll take off in the damn ship. And we’ll be marooned here while our friends are hopefully being held hostage and will be tossed out on, like, Groundbreaker.” She took in a deep breath, letting it out as a tired sigh. “ _Hopefully_ they take ‘em hostage, don’t just decide to put a bullet in their heads—”

Neena interrupted her, gripping their rifle tight. “Hell no. I’m gonna kill every last one of those motherfuckers before they can even _dream_ of hurting anyone on _The Unreliable.”_

The bounty hunter pursed her lips and nodded appreciatively. “Sounds like we’re both thinkin’ the same way. But how are we gonna do that _and_ make sure that they don’t just stick a knife in anyone outta spite, or try to take off?”

For a brief moment Neena recalled something that ADA had once told them—about the apparently legendary paranoia of the original Captain Hawthorne—who had used to take _The Unreliable’s_ core with him everywhere he went. If Neena had done the same, then they wouldn’t be in the position of fearing being marooned on Monarch, with the core they had taken from shutting down Adelaide’s colony stolen, along with the rest of their fucking ship.

Everything they had done thus far, everyone who trusted them, gone.

But there was no time to keep thinking about that—or to freak out over the fact that they had endangered the people who had trusted them to lead them—as Neena knew that they could take off at any moment. The moment, more than likely, that someone managed to brute force through whatever paltry defenses ADA had.

And, _Christ_ , Neena hoped that ADA had just liked them and had some more defenses that she had not used on them, the first time they had met. They didn’t know how else they would even get enough time to get back on board before the raiders took off with everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week is going to be kind of hard for me. You know when you are sure of the way things ought to go, the logical way, and in the back of your head you can hear the voice that said that the place where this so-called sure thing is coming from is prone to fits of, well, we can diplomatically call it ass-backward fits of utter insanity, to the level that everything that happens due to it at least comes off as purposeful acts by some evil cabal who want the thing to collapse or they are VERY BAD at being parasites who suck off of it, that the exact opposite of what should happen by every bar of acceptability is consistently chosen? You know, how life do be like that sometimes? 
> 
> Who am I kidding, I live in America and I came from a broken home, where I sometimes felt like the logical one at the age of 12 in the midst of everyone around me. But, come on, if you knew how much this position would have changed my life--and how much work I already do in this place--you'd be pissed, too.
> 
> *Deep sigh*. Okay, so... I kind of thought that for once something good would happen to me at a place of work. In Indiana. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw, but I honestly, no irony (which might have been the poison for me to begin with) I respect and adore the organization I work for. Although, I kind of want to use that term percariously, especially going forward. I should not have put all of my fucking eggs in one basket, especially one run by the idiots I have had numerous chances to learn are fleabag con men AT BEST who don't know what they're talking about, and at worst are here to make something beautiful fail. And it is beautiful; I cannot stress that enough. What has been built here is, to someone perhaps not prone to Satanic degeneracy, it could be referred to as miraculous, and on my worst days it is worth remembering that I am a steward of it. But my work here has been a toxic relationship for at least 2 years, not aided at all by the fact that I am fucking scared of leaving, of life getting worse for me if I go. But, I mean, I don't even work full time here. And moving forward, the news I got within half an hour of having to go to work last week (I wasn't given a position that was for all purposes is a direct promotion of my current duties *ugly cry*) is that no matter the reasoning, this place is a fucking insane shithole that can't even promote anyone using logic or even out of a sense of decency for someone who has carried a lot of the unfair weight of the portion they work for, with people who make far more money than I, in the hopes of getting this position.
> 
> So... *gestures to nothing* I guess given the fact that my place of work has decided to fling its shit in my face, I can either take it like a good girl or do my best to slap them in the face. And I think it's best for all parties, me especially, if I just pick up this destroyed birthday cake and go while I still have this much life in me.
> 
> Yay.
> 
> So, that's what life is like for me at the moment. I am not looking for sympathy (I actually abhore it, save it for someone without a job) but I never said I wasn't a highly dramatic king. And I feel like these author's notes are places where I can be my true self, in ways I likely won't with my original stuff. And I'm just maaaad and saaaad right now. I mean, I woke up yesterday, days after te bomb dropped, and it felt like I actually started feeling the way I will feel for the rest of my life over this last month, especially towards this organization. I was so pissed my partner could hear it in my voice as I left the bed to start my day (eek). After I let myself experience it, I got to work and I actually spent yesterday organizing all of the old draft for my bigass novel I have posted on my Wattpad (link on my profile, only if you're immune to suck) and now I can go through it a lot faster. I also applied for like six jobs--five of which I don't actually regret angry posting to.
> 
> If someone could just pay me for thirsty angsty romance smut, I would be in the clear. And if I hadn't already edited this (to a point) I might not have even felt like posting it. Luckily, past me is less fucking upset than I am right now. 
> 
> So, let's enjoy fan fiction, remember that black lives matter, we ought to really be questioning everything politically and socially going forward, and remember: when someone hits you, you need to hit back. Even if it means a month in the fucking hole.


	26. 25. The Man Who Fell to Monarch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meek--or, at least, the now meek--shall inherit the captain's seat. At least, until he's executed.

They had captured Ellie on her way back to the ship, alone. Yes, it really  _ had _ been that damned easy to get inside of  _ The Unreliable.  _ And it was hard to imagine whether Max should have been angrier at himself, Ellie—or at the person who was supposed to be with her. Who was the one he had believed would always be there for them. Protect this ship and, yes, them. Or at least, guide them. 

Save them from the unending darkness of Halcyon.

He feigned a lack of concern, bordering on disdain as he addressed the unwanted guests. “You know, it might not be the  _ best _ idea to try to take over the ship of people who’re used to taking out whole swaths of people in your chosen profession.”

The thug who had been threatening Parvati turned to look at Max, an angry sneer stretched across her face. “Shut up, old man!  _ We’re _ the ones with guns.” She lifted her pistol and pointed it directly at Max’s head. “I could splatter your brains all over that fucking wall and none of you could do a thing about it.”

The panic that had been pooling in Max’s gut, kept barely in control by an odd calm that had come from the rush of adrenaline, rose anew in him at the sight of that gun. 

The recent change in Max’s life—the abrupt and dramatic change, from a life of trying to find peace in an imposed series of at least once literal but usually metaphorical prisons he always somehow managed to land himself in, now for a life making good on his muscles and wits—had not, nevertheless, given him an impervious skin to bullets. Or immunity from being beaten or knifed, for that matter.

The person he supposed was the head thug (because she did all of the terse demanding and yelling) was of an indeterminate age, but she definitely looked like whatever her age was, she has spent most of the years of it living  _ hard _ . She was large, with her body either made up of muscle, fat, or a thick padding of armor that wrapped underneath her mismatch of armor. Still, with how quick she moved he would have assumed that she might have been in her thirties, but, if the grey in her hair was any indication, she might have been older even than Max. The dry, dessicated quality of her skin, and the fact that when she spoke her mouth took on the quality of a jack-o’-lantern from old Earth custom, did her no favors, as did the fact that any time she was within five feet of him he could smell the pungent reek of her unbathed body.

By the Engineer’s fake bones, it had been a good  _ minute  _ since Max had smelled someone who had had such difficulty with personal hygiene. It was a concerted effort, whenever she was near, to try to not want to breathe through his mouth, to risk the possibility of offending her.

Ever since the thugs had come pouring into the ship and announced that this ship was theirs, Max had been trying to figure out how he could possibly keep  _ The Unreliable’s  _ crew from being slaughtered or taken hostage for who could even know what horrible purpose. And it seemed to him that all roads to finding out how to keep them alive rested with this feral-looking thug whom the others followed the orders of without question.

As he had gotten better at doing, Max feigned boredom, clearing his throat. Aware that as horrifying as it was for him to have a gun pointed at his head, every moment the thug was pointing her gun at his head was a moment that she was _ not _ pointing it at Parvati. 

The ship’s engineer had been sat up against the lockers, her hands tied behind her back. Parvati had been caught downstairs, where she had been working on the engine as they waited for their Captain to come back. As soon as he had realized that she was being kept down here, alone, he talked his way down there to be with her.

In spite of the situation, Max had seen occasional looks of gratefulness from the young woman.

None of them—ever—expected that they would be boarded and captured like this. And without Captain Castillo there for them. The best he could do was try to take over in their stead.

He said, “Might not want to do that. If you want to ever get this ship up. Or get any of the crew to behave enough to even dream of getting up in the air without one of us going into a frenzy and breaking loose.”

“Oh? And why’s that?”

_ Shit _ . Max had been trying to wing it, ever since he had been dragged down the stairs, thankfully only some of it by his ass, which, along with his back, was quite sore. Not for the first time, and he hoped not the last, Max lamented his ease at bruising and weakening with his older age, in spite of some light bravado on his part for Neena’s benefit.

He only hoped that what he lacked, wholly, in physicality and presence in the face of the unwanted visitors aboard  _ The Unreliable,  _ he could make up for with a good story. The kind that could keep all of them alive, as he figured out what these people even wanted from them. 

And as he looked into the mad eyes of the thug, Max felt the lie come to him with shocking ease for someone, as it seemed that nearly everyone had already teased him for, that had up to very recently been a man of the cloth. “Because ADA won’t obey anyone who’s not the Captain.”

The thug growled—actually  _ growled. _ “Alright then. Where is the fucking Captain of this ship?”

Parvati started to speak, and Max knew that she was going to undoubtedly tell the thug the truth. So he interrupted her. “That’s me. I’m the Captain.” Almost as if to test how the word sounded in conjunction with his name, he added, “Maximillion DeSoto, Captain of  _ The Unreliable.” _

Trying to sit up straighter from where he had been unceremoniously thrown to sit against a wall, he briefly caught the wide, disbelieving eyes of Parvati. Max looked away quickly, gazing up, directly into the eyes of the woman who had, thankfully, stopped pointing her gun at his head. “If you kill me, or if you kill any member of this crew, ADA will automatically lock the engine.” The next lie came much easier to the man than the earlier ones had—perhaps due to the compounding effect—as he said, “And what’s more, I can order the ship’s A.I to destroy the core.” He said it, making a jump in logic that he barely had the time to worry that ADA wouldn’t back him up on before he had a chance to rethink it. “Isn’t that right, ADA?”

With barely a pause, the A.I answered back, “That is right, Captain DeSoto.”

_ Whoa, so she’ll call  _ me  _ DeSoto, but Neena has to be Captain Hawthorne?  _ There was no time to celebrate this fact, or the more gratifying aspect, that the A.I had backed up his blatant lie. Max kept a tight expression on his face, trying to channel his old bastard self. And maybe more than a bit of the influence of the chronically misanthropic person of his dreams. “So tell me: why should I not tell ADA to decimate the core right now if you’re only going to kill us?”

The thug bared her socket-filled mouth at him. She kept the gun trained at his head, which Max forced himself ignore, looking her directly in the eyes. 

The thought crossed his mind; that this woman was some sort of karmic punishment for his role as a swindler who pushed his faith into the chronically naive, or just plain stupid. 

The funny thing was that he was relying on those same abilities he used on the people of Edgewater, trying to look as honest as he could as he stared the thug directly in the eyes, challenging her to call his bluff.  _ I go a lifetime bemoaning and haranguing others over the practice of gambling, yet I’m the one left to do it for the crew’s life and the ship. _

But he didn’t have a chance to fear that his words weren’t working. 

The woman cursed, gesturing so emphatically and angrily that it looked like at any moment she would toss the gun away. Half-stomping a step back, she turned and glared back at Max, said, “Fine! We won’t kill all a you. But you need to make that—that A.I thing obey us. We need a ride.” As Max opened his mouth to speak, she added, enunciating each word with a stomp on the ground, “we got an appointment with Catherine.” He must have been staring at her with as much shock as he felt, because she snarled, lifting her pistol, pointing it back at his head. “What’s the matter, dad, are ya deaf?”

Max felt like he already knew the answer, but he asked, “You don’t happen to have aspirations of joining SubLight?”

It was the first time that the woman had bared her teeth at him with anything that felt like something approaching mirth as she grinned a broad, broken smile at him. “You could say we have an appointment with SubLight’s head goon. She’s been long overdue with a visit from ol’ Mr. Friendly,” she said, motioning with the long rifle that was strapped to her back. “We’re gonna fly onto that little landing pad, right where they aren’t expecting a surprise visit. Then we’re gonna say hi to some old ex-co workers, then say a long overdue to our old boss.”

_ Ex SubLight goons _ . What the fuck had they gotten caught in the crosshairs of, exactly? 

In case there was, still, any question about what these maniacs meant to do, Parvati gasped and said the obvious. “Oh… you’re gonna  _ assassinate _ Catherine.”

He resisted the urge to drop his head down; with Max’s hands tied behind his back he couldn’t exactly cradle it. “You’re making a huge mistake. Attacking SubLight would be a—a  _ suicide _ run. You have to know that.”

The thug surprised him by reaching down and forward, grabbing onto his collar, half-hauling him up off the ground. “Well, then,” Her breath this close up and personal was nearly taking the breath out of his own lungs. Fetid, overwarm. “Guess you’d better hope that we survive the assault on Fallbrook, ‘cause I can tell you from experience that SubLight don’t take prisoners unless they can make a bit from taking ‘em hostage.”

Staring into the eyes of the crazed thug, Max realized that they could all be within moments of having to face down the head of Fallbrook against their will. And the only thing he could think of to do was buy them time. 

Summoning the strength that he didn’t really think was even inside of him, Max said, “I’m not doing anything until I can see that everyone else on board is still okay.”

The thug dropped him on the ground, eliciting a yell from Parvati, followed with her, in a panicked voice, calling out, “Mr. DeSoto, are you alright!”

Max was aware, even as he landed, hard, on his tailbone, that if the thug was less dumb than he had gotten the impression from her of being, that she might wonder why a supposed member of  _ his _ crew was calling him “mister” and not “Captain”. Rushing to try to cover that up, groaning, Max said, “Take me to the rest of the crew, then I’ll do whatever you want.”

As much of a relief as it was, from what seemed as though the thug had not noticed Parvati potentially dropping the lie that he was trying to build up, her reaction was a hard slap to the face. “What’s it gonna matter soon anyway? Like you said, we’re gonna go on a suicide run soon enough.”

Prior to the raiders breaking onto _The Unreliable,_ if Max had been asked what it was that he was the most proud of about himself, it would have been the change he had made in the half a year spent on the ship. How he had gone from a selfish, sneering asshole who thought that he was better than everyone, loveless, thinking himself cold when in reality he was overhot, burning himself out from the depths of his soul. Not above cutting anyone down who got in his way, challenged his belief system. Not above, either, yelling and getting physically aggressive. 

Maybe he had just been living in a fool’s paradise, to think that he was anything other than “violently enthusiastic” Max up to this point.

Max sat up, instinctively tensing his wrists to pull his hands up, forgetting that they were tied up. If he were in any position to hear himself, Max might have shocked himself to hear the honest vitriol that came out of him with such little chance to plan for it before it just erupted out of him. “This ship won’t do a single  _ fucking god damn  _ thing you want. If you want to go to Fallbrook you will do what  _ I _ want first.” The anger that he had been trying to force had started to come to life—or else, perhaps, Max’s true disposition was leeching out of him in the face of stress. 

Indeed, as the thug grinned and Max knew what she was going to do before she put the damn gun back in his face, he tilted his head to the side, felt the tight, annoyed smile stretching across his face. “Yeah, sure, point the gun back in my face, like it’ll make me do a damned thing any different. I’m already so sick of your trite, violent, stupid threats, so if you want to keep threatening me with that thing, then you can just finish your threats already and put the bullet in me.” The angry smile that had been on his face broadened, a wild, insane man’s expression to match the infernal fire that filled his eyes. “Do it, and you’re  _ never _ getting this ship in the air.”

For a split second, he thought that the thug was going to do it.

With a definitely angry look in her eyes, the thug pulled away—finally—holstering the gun. “Alright. I show you the rest of your pitiful crew, show you that you’re all alive—for the time being—then you need to take us over to the shitty little kingdom that Catherine has.” And, before Max could even have a chance to catch his breath or calm down, the thug had grabbed hold of him by his shoulder, was dragging him up to his feet. She turned him, forced him to look at the terrified Parvati who looked up at him. Eyes shining, full of terror, confusion, and hope.

Hope that he was going to save them.

“As you can see,  _ she’s _ still breathing. For the time being.” Again, before Max could say or do anything in response, the thug took a tight grip on his upper arm and steered him towards the stairwell, then proceeded to force him up it. As she roughly pushed him up the stairs, Max nearly lost his footing just before he reached the landing that was in front of Neena’s room, making him let out a weak groan. “Damn, you really  _ are _ an old man. Don’t die of a heart attack before you can give your A.I the order to get us in the air.”

Barely thinking before he said it, Max blurted out, “You wouldn’t need to be worried about me if you weren’t breaking into our ship and putting a gun in my face.”

Surprising him, the thug laughed, yanking him up the landing and onto the second set of stairs. “I’ll make this  _ quick _ , then.” 

As the thug pulled him up the rest of the stairs, Max realized where the rest of the crew who had been on the ship were when he saw them sitting at the kitchen table. With raiders behind them, ready at any moment to kill them. 

He was being walked down the hall, past their unoccupied rooms and towards the kitchen and dining room where they had all spent so much time together, had built memories that were, for the first time in most of their lives, felt like experiences not directly influenced by the rotten existence that living in Halcyon had imposed on all of them.

And here they all were; back on Monarch, with the people that he had started to, honestly, care about, in serious danger of getting killed. 

As he was frog-marched into the kitchen, Max realized that the whole crew was in danger of having the whole house of cards that was keeping them alive come crashing down on all of them. As he hesitated to think about what he could say to make everyone else in the room know what he needed them to believe, Felix looked up at him and said something that nearly did just what he had been afraid of.

“Have you heard anything of the Captain?”

Max shut his eyes, wanting to cry out in rage. Instead, he blurted out, “Kid, for the last time, I am the Captain of this ship.” Opening his eyes, he did not miss the shocked looks on the faces of Felix and Ellie. He realized, for the first time, that SAM was missing. “We’re all going to cooperate with the raiders. We’re… going to go on a visit to Fallbrook.”

Not that Max was actually angry at Ellie—he knew that this was the fault of all of them, in a sense—but when she spoke, he somehow knew that she would make things harder to maintain this farce.

“Fallbrook? What the hell are we doing over there?”

The thug—seeming to be their ring leader or de facto leader—answered for him, excitedly. “We’re going to say hello to our old friend, Catherine.”

Felix tried to leap up in his chair, and as the boy yelled, Max wondered if he was about to see the boy die, then and there. To his relief, instead of killing him for the outburst, the thug closest to him leaned over and struck him, sending him to the ground, hard.

If someone had told Max earlier that day that he would be relieved to see Felix hit across the face hard enough to send him falling to the ground, he would have thought that they were insane. 

And did Ellie learn a lesson, about keeping her mouth shut? 

“Hey, Max said it—we’re not going to  _ fight back _ !”

The woman who had been menacing Max spoke up. “No more sudden outbursts, else I’ll start executing ya’ll,” she nodded to Max. “whether or not you like it.”

He had no choice but to repeat his earlier refrain. “If you kill or hurt anyone else on this ship, I will order ADA to lock down and you won’t be able to use this ship, period.”

ADA, silent for so long that it would have been easy to forget that she was, always, present, even in this insanity, as she said, “I agree with that ultimatum. If anyone else is hurt on my ship I will lock down and I will only allow  _ The Unreliable  _ to take off with only accepted crew members left on board.”

The thug’s face contorted in rage, and for a split second Max wondered if the rage monster would start shooting blindly into the walls. Letting out a hissing breath, she wiped at her face, said, “Alright, but no more sudden movements! We’re all in this together, we need to cooperate, else I’ll just execute all ya’ll and we’ll move on.”

Max said, “You won’t. How long have you been out here, scheming your revenge on SubLight? What do you think the odds are, of another ship unaffiliated with the Board and therefore not likely to be heavily defended and tracked, to come, landing here in the middle of Monarch no man’s land?” Unable to resist it, Max thought,  _ Damn it, Neena, what the  _ hell _ were you  _ thinking,  _ bringing us out here in the first place for no good reason?  _ “I’m willing to bet, this ship landing here is the best luck you’ve have in months. Maybe even a year. How long has Fallbrook been there, exiling any SubLight contractors or goons out into the wilderness to die off from the wildlife? How much longer do you people, believably, think you’ll survive like this?” When the thug only glared back at him, he continued. “You kill us, then this ship will be here for you to scrap, but I’ll make damn sure you can never take off in it.”

The woman yelled. “Fine! Tell your buddies here to behave theirselves.” She motioned with her finger, pointing up. “How long it take this thing to get ready for take off?”

Max considered his options, how long he could continue to stall. If he could press all of their luck and lie about how long it would take to get  _ The Unreliable  _ up and going. If this thug could stand to wait for much longer without doing what she was obviously excited to do; kill some of the unarmed crew members of a ship she wanted. 

Wondered, also, if, no matter how remote the possibility was, with how many thugs Max had thus far witnessed coming on and off of the ship, Neena would return. And somehow, they would save the crew.

But another feeling besides relief seized him at that thought. Instead of hoping that the true Captain of  _ The Unreliable  _ would come back, save them, he realized that he believed that if the strong-willed Captain returned they might get killed in a struggle.

After all, Neena was not the kind of person who, ever, went down without a fight. But if they took off, Max knew that it would be the last time he would ever see the only person he had ever cared about, deeply. __

Nevertheless, the ex-Vicar of the ship rose his chin and said, “Take me down to the cockpit. We can leave as soon as you want.”

In spite of the raucous yelling and celebrating from the raiders, it felt to Max like he was dying inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe it's the weather, or the feeling that no matter what's happening at my place of work is one way or the other going to be over sooner rather than later, but I'm feeling a lot better this wee than I was last one. I mean, it is rough to see the stick figure that got my job at the desk... but, if we don't move on, we become assholes. 
> 
> Almost through the first fourth of the revision of my manuscript right now, which I could go through faster if I could stop messing around with my templates, Airtable, and Scrivener systems. Oh well.
> 
> Not much else to talk about, besides where we are in the story here. I remember planning this part out and writing it, because of how I was inspired by the other stories in the fandom. Yeah, I think about 16-17 chapters of this are directly inspired by the impression I got, that my story had to be more ambitious and had to have a more dramatic plot to slide into than I had originally. Well, I hope you like it.


	27. 26. Scoundrel Scramble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Attempting to control and find ways of dealing with a rampaging animal can be sometimes an act of trying to minimize damage--
> 
> as well as an opportunity, for those brave, or stupid enough, to try to seize the moment.

Max was brought to the cockpit, made to stand in front of the display panel that showed ADA, who was of course more than capable of showing a blank face. As soon as they came into the room, the head thug saw the generated face of ADA and cried out, “Holy shit! The ship has a face!”

That almost drew a smile out of Max, the first one that wasn’t enraged since the ordeal had begun. “She’s special, that’s for certain.”

The thug leaned back against the doorway, gazing at the little room. Finally she shook her head. “Where did you find this? ‘cause, if you got this some place legitimately, then this would be all tied down with Board regulations. You wouldn’t be allowed to fly this thing wherever in Halcyon you want, and you wouldn’t be ridin' around with a dumb kid, a loudmouth bone setter, and some little slip of a girl who carries a wrench.”

Max wondered what she would think, if she knew about the drunken bounty hunter or the altered cleaning auto-mechanical. Oh, and the wild party animal that was the  _ actual  _ Captain Hawthorne. 

“Whoo-ee, we’re gonna have a good time in this thing, once we’re done with business and we can get to pleasure. This thing’s the key to all of the adventure an’ bits in the whole system.” Max had ignored the woman, looking at ADA as if he could find something in the A.I’s generated face that could still somehow save them. “And if I have to keep you around to do it, then that’s what we’re gonna have to do, if you can’t let this ship listen to me none.”

Max had thought that the worst he could think about was the insane prospect of their sure death at the hands of every SubLight goon there was in the very place where they had taken many jobs from before. This, seemingly throwaway line, felt like it sank clear into his bones. It was hard to keep a straight face, and Max was glad that he wasn’t looking at the woman as she kept speaking. 

“You hear me? I might keep you as my little helper, a key to turn this engine on.”

Maybe Max was imagining it, but the look on ADA’s face, completely generated though it was, seemed to show a concerned, worried look for a split second. 

Max feigned a cough, not daring to look at the head thug. “I don’t know if that’s something we ought to concern ourselves with. Like you said, this is almost certain to be a suicide run.”

He could hear the woman walking through the cockpit, towards him. She said, “Even a big tough broad like me gets lonely, y’know. You’re near fifty, ain't you? Got you some wifey somewhere? Her eyes seemed to glow, a dark joy in them. "Maybe a boyfriend?"

_ Why not  _ both,  _ actually. _ Max felt like something was making every hair on his body stand on end—like how one of the folks back in his family’s company settlement referred to as “someone walking over your grave”. Still not looking at her, Max said, “Something like that, sure.”

She chuckled, the sound reminding Max of what tar and sandpaper would sound like if it were given a voice. “”Something like that. Sure”. Tell me, how do guys outside of Monarch like to dress, is it like this? Because color me _ impressed _ .”

Before he had an idea that she was going to do, the thug came up behind him and ran her hand against the short-clipped hair on the back of his head. He flinched at the touch more than he did when she threatened him with physical abuse or threw him around, manhandled him. Cursing, Max flipped around, facing the woman. Shocked when he saw the half-lidded look she was giving him. 

It curdled his stomach.

Max barely had a chance to fix his expression, make sure that he wasn’t showing the disgust that he felt as deep inside of him as any emotion ever had been. “Please, don’t touch me if you can manage it.”

She laughed; her whole presence, her odious, foul being, seemed to be surrounding and crowding him in the too small space of the cockpit. “Ooh, so  _ polite _ . But I know some things about you you don’t want me to know. You aren’t one a them Byzantium dandies; hands too rough, fire in you too hot.” She rested a hand on her misshapen, heavily reinforced chest. “You come from a background like us. How’d a man like you get a hold of a ship like this?”

Struggling more and more to keep the terror that he felt from showing on his face, he said, “I thought you said you wanted to go over to Fallbrook as soon as possible.”

Her eyes dropped, sweeping over him as if he wasn’t wearing any clothes at all. “I would like to get up in the air soon, yeah. But you know, I was wondering if you could show me around the ship. So I know what I get to come back to, once I raze that stupid kingdom of hers down to the fucking ground.” She leaned in closer, a loathsome smirk snaking up one side of her face. “I don't plan on losin', ya know. Maybe get a better idea of who I get to keep with me also. Maybe for bed warmth.”

Max shrank back, barely able to believe that this was happening, least of all to him. For once, Max cursed himself for his fastidious, cleanly habits.  _ I must seem like something completely out of this world to someone like this.  _ Struggling to find words to speak, he said, “Can we just focus on business right now, and—”

The woman’s seamed face broke into a broad, jagged grin, and as she spoke, her unclean breath wafted against his face. “Alright soft boy. I’m fixing to have some of that sugar, but we can wait till I can get the blood washed off. I ain’t had a shower in a real long time. Think I might need me some help using that water closet of yours. Your help.”

Max couldn’t help it, he winced and flinched back, groaning. “Whatever—please, I am—I’m in no mood for… for this right now—I thought you were more interested in going to Fallbrook, not trying to pester me—”

Her face changed as if a mask of pleasantness had dropped, revealing the type of person who was capable of surviving exile on Monarch, eyes darkened, glassy. The thought crossed Max’s mind, that she might beat him to death there, forget any plans that she had for him or for SubLight. 

“Now, I’m startin’ to  _ think _ that you don’t think I’m too pretty.” Then her face broke into another one of those unsettling smiles, followed by her throwing her head back and laughing. “I like the way you blush. I bet you used to work real hard, but that was a long time ago. Now you stay inside, don’t you?” She leaned forward, recognizing something in his face that pleased her, curling her large, meaty hand into a fist and knocking it against his shoulder. “It’s alright, I can wait a day ‘fore I go after that tasty lil' rabbit.”

That sent a shudder through Max.  _ Rabbit?  _ Sickof feeling on the defensive and being treated this way, Max said, “ADA, can we get into the air?”

ADA seemed to hesitate, then said, “Alright, I will go into orbit above Monarch for the time being—”

The woman interrupted, irritation clear on her face. “No no. We’re going to Fallbrook, and we’re doing it  _ now _ , before one of youse gets some kinda smart idea and try to fuck us.” She pointed at Max, thankfully without a gun this time. “I’m gonna go get the rest of my boys, and  _ then _ we’re gonna go up into the air.”

Max sat back against the panel, then walked over, sitting in the Captain’s chair. Muttering softly, Max said, “Fine, let’s go to Fallbrook, by all means. Not like I was planning on living past tonight, anyway.”

As he watched the head of the raiders skulk part of the way through the cockpit, ADA spoke up, the face on the display panel pleased. Even smug.

“Takeoff procedure initiated. We will be up in the air in three… two… one…”

The woman shouted, rushing back into the cockpit even as Max felt the sensation of the ship taking off. He had to duck his head, hiding the relieved smile that grew on his face. There was already so many raiders on board that it wasn’t as if ADA taking off just saved them completely—but he would be lying if the thought of the raiders who had been left down on the launch pad didn’t cheer him up just a little, especially after he had been harassed by their leader. 

Sitting back in the chair, Max summoned the calm he had been trying at earlier, waiting for her to begin arguing with him.

Sure enough, the woman pulled her gun out and pointed it at him. “Go back down.” When Max only shrugged, lifting his hands up, she started to throw a tantrum, yelling and clutching the side of her head, all the while flailing the gun around. “Fuck! Tell this thing to go back down, so—”

ADA spoke up, cutting her off. “As I was ordered, I lifted the ship up, and we will reach the SubLight town of Fallbrook in ten minutes.”  _ Ten minutes? ADA can usually manage that in two. _

This time it was a relief to see the raider’s rage directed at someone else that wasn’t him. She shrieked at ADA’s visual panel, half-heartedly pointing her handgun at the generated face. “Turn us around, put us back down where we were, I need my boys and I need them in here. Right.  _ Now. _ ”

Max watched the two argue, wondering if it was right to take pleasure in watching the woman who was trying to ruin their lives or perhaps even get them all killed, arguing with an A.I. 

Perhaps too many months around Neena  _ had _ altered him permanently. 

Smoothly, and with a neutral expression, the A.I answered, “I cannot understand that command. I only take commands from Captain DeSoto.”

That lit a fire under Max, one that he had to struggle to keep from showing by leaping out of the Captain’s chair triumphantly. He looked at the raider and tried his best to look apologetic. “I’m sorry, but I have no intention of taking us back down there.”

She laughed, but there was something on her face, a relief after she had seemed so effortlessly comfortable with controlling as much of his life as she wanted. Something that said that she was afraid, worried. “You’re not  _ cute _ . I want—” she paused, flinching and licking her lips as she seemed to struggle to think of what to say. “Tell your ship that we need to turn around. Now.”

If Max had ever prided himself on being quick on his feet, then ADA put Max to shame. She said, “I am sorry. I am unable to cancel a flight path once it has been ordered.” The smile and side-eye never for a moment faded.

The woman threw her hands out, her voice risen in a scream. “No! That doesn’t even make any sense! Land us. Right. Now!”

Almost forgetting about the rest of the raiders who were indeed still on the ship, Max wasn’t expecting the helmeted man who came into the cockpit, his voice betraying his nerves. “Hey, why’re we up right n—”

The woman reacted with a quick, sharp, “Shut up, Carl, I know! Do you think I can’t tell that the ship is no longer parked on _the goddamn ground?”_ When the man only reacted by standing there, flinching, she continued by shrieking, “Tell the boys—tell the boys that we’re going to get ready for the assault in less than ten minutes.”

The man stared at both his leader and at Max in stunned silence until the head raider screeched wordlessly at him then waved her gun towards him. He took off running, out of the cockpit, and even over the sound of the sound of the ship Max could hear the man man continuing in a frenzy up the stairs, presumably to pass on the order.

Max, having regained some of his asshole persona, said to the raider, “You certainly don’t seem to speak often with an indoor voice, do you?”

The woman surprised him. Rushing towards him with a speed that Max did not expect such a brickhouse of a human being to be capable of, she grabbed him by his shirt’s collar and throttled him, shaking his whole upper body like he was a rag doll. Before Max could even attempt to take a fresh breath in she leaned in close, bathing Max in the familiar and horrid aroma of her unwashed mouth as she said, “You can’t tell this thing to go back where we were? Really? You can’t override an order in this thing?”

Max stared into the mad eyes of the raider and the only thought that came to mind, besides terror at his situation, was,  _ what the hell else have I got to lose?  _ Feigning all of the confidence that he surely didn’t feel, Max said, “I can’t change how the ship was built. And that is why I have to be extra careful that I don’t  _ accidentally _ send us somewhere.”

For a second Max expected that she would beat the shit out of him, make him admit that he was lying. One of her fists looked like they were half of the size of his head, and that all it would take to knock him out for as long as Neena had been in stasis, surely. 

Then she backed up, finally letting go of his collar as she let out a derisive scoff. “Lucky for you: I have a card up my sleeve. After we’re done in Fallbrook, we’re going back to pick the rest of my boys up.” She walked away, out of the cockpit, leaving Max half-sunk back in the Captain’s chair, wondering what the hell the raiders were going to do—and where that would leave not only Max, but the rest of the crew of  _ The Unreliable. _

Closing his eyes and struggling to get his breath back, Max almost wondered what else could go wrong when ADA said, “Captain DeSoto, I need you to go into the engine room.”

Max ducked his head and sighed. “With all due respect, I don’t think now is the right time to look at the engine.”

“To the contrary: you need to come to the engine room. Now is preferrable.”

Sighing, Max forced himself to stand back up, awkward with his hands still tied behind his back, although he was starting to get the hang of walking without the use of his free hands. Muttering under his breath everything that ADA’s strange demand had made him feel, Max walked across the entrance area of the ship and then into the workshop. He stood in front of the work desk, then looked up and said to the ceiling, “Alright, now I’m here.”

“Captain DeSoto, there’s something with my engine that I need you to examine. Now.”

Max gave in, walking across the workshop towards the engines. He was standing in front of the engines, waiting for ADA to say something, anything else to him, when movement from behind the engines had him freezing in place.

* * *

Neena had never really wondered to themselves how they would—could—break into their own ship; at least, find a way to get onto their ship without going through the entrance. And there was a reason (a  _ very _ good reason) for why it should not have been possible to get onto the ship any other way than through the entrance. 

But, Neena had explained to Nyoka, as they crouched behind a rock face and watched the movements of the goons with guns and in helmets, Parvati had told them a way that she knew of onto the ship. As the woman had said,  _ A good builder always makes a secret entrance. Especially if the doors are what needs fixed in the first place. _

While that was a good idea, the only other problem—the one that Nyoka had pointed out—was that there were what looked to be at least fifteen guys in full on armor, sporting guns and wandering around the launch pad. And even if they had wiped all of them out, Neena knew that their crew in the ship was undoubtedly in danger if whomever was in the ship caught them outside.

“What the fuck are we gonna do?” Neena buried their face in their hand, overcome with the feeling that they had failed completely, miserably.

Even though the question was at least partially rhetorical, Nyoka surprised them by saying, “Well, shit. We lure ‘em away.”

Pulling their face out of their hands, Neena looked at their companion in disbelief. “What? How? Anything we do is going to make them tell their buddies on the ship what we’re up to.”

Nyoka shrugged. “I’m spitballing’ here, but if I were some asshole trying to lay siege to a ship, I’d be gettin’ the hell out of there if I thought my life was in danger. And, raiders aren’t the most… reliable or loyal. So you make ‘em scared off enough, they’ll run off. At least, if it’s something that doesn’t give ‘em the time to run back into the ship, ‘cause it would cause a bottleneck to run back into it.”

Neena stared at her, waiting for the woman to elaborate. When she didn’t, the Captain snapped at her, “And  _ how _ do you scare them off?”

Nyoka paused, her eyes sharper than they normally looked. “Easy. We lure a Mantiqueen over here.”

Neena had laughed at her.

* * *

As the bounty hunter pulled Neena through shrubs, the Captain had no choice but to tell her, “I don’t think we should be fucking around, hoping to find something to tear our heads off. They could leave at any second.”

Nyoka shushed them, beckoning for Neena to follow her further through the brush. “Look, I know I’m not the most reliable, or shit, trustworthy person on the ship, but if anyone knows how to cause a distraction, it’s me. And besides, those clowns’re pacing around outside like a bunch of assholes. They’re not going anywhere anytime soon.” She glanced at Neena, a smile that felt oddly comforting on her face. “If Max and ADA have anything to do with it, they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.”

As she turned and walked further through the brush, Neena stuttered, wondering how in the hell anyone could be so certain that the crew could manage to halt anyone taking off with  _ The Unreliable  _ any time soon. Then, as Nyoka didn’t say anything else, Neena asked, “And how do you plan to use a Mantiqueen to distract them?”

Nyoka didn’t answer at first, and Neena wondered if she was yanking their chain after all, then the bounty hunter said, “Well, less “distraction” and more like “chase off the damn landing pad”.”

“And like I said: how in the hell are you planning on getting a Mantiqueen out of nowhere to chase them off?”

Nyoka stopped, and Neena figured that she was about to answer them. Then the woman pointed into the canyon that they had wandered over to the edge of, below. Neena hesitated, had a feeling against all logic of what they were going to see.

Looking over the edge, Neena saw it, truly massive and curled up in a ball, like it was something as innocuous as a sleeping dog. 

Neena moaned. “You have _ got _ to be shitting me.” Regretting the fact that they even had to ask the question, they turned and asked it. “How do you plan on getting that giant bitch to the landing pad?”

Nyoka leaned over, patting them on the shoulder. “Well, a Manitqueen will chase and try to kill anything that they think’s an intruder in their territory. Heard they’ll chase an intruder near as far as they can manage, up to fifty miles when properly rested.”

“Oh. fuck.” Neena looked at the Manitqueen, realizing the more that they looked at it that it was a massive beast. Bigger, surely, than any Maniqueen that they had ever fought off before.

“Yeah,” Nyoka said, chuckling, seeing the horrified expression on the face of the Captain. “ _ that’s _ See You Next Tuesday. We all kinda let her be. It’s why people usually leave this area alone; up till very recently, she’s been really good with keeping the population of every fucking thing else in the area down. I think she’s been gettin’ on in the years. Definitely hasn’t been getting it on, if you catch my drift.” She paused, turning to look down at the giant bug that looked like it was asleep. “Y’know, I’m not even sure if she’s still alive. She might be dead. Never could tell if these things are alive or dead, ‘less one of them’s running at you.” And, before Neena could guess what she was about to do, the woman cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled out, “Hey, you still breathing?”

At first Neena thought that their only plan thus far was actually dead. And then it—she—pulled her head out of her wide, scythe-like arms and looked directly at them. 

As Neena recoiled, about to run like their life depended on it, Nyoka reached over and took hold of their shoulder. Scoffing, Nyoka said, “What’s your rush? Not like she can climb a sheer cliff wall. Especially at her age.”

* * *

Neena had dropped their bulging bag of looted drugs behind them, somewhere around the time that See You Next Tuesday had picked up speed, clipping after the two running crew members of  _ The Unreliable  _ far too close for comfort.

Just the thought of managing to put the supposedly very old beast down shook Neena to consider. Easily twice the size of a normal Maniqueen, and in spite of its size, it hurtled along just fine half of the time with huge, swinging stabs with its sycthe-like arms. Luckily for them, Nyoka’s plan wasn’t to actually  _ kill _ the murderous bug that felt like she had been on their heels for what could not have been more than five minutes but felt like an eternity. 

Christ,  _ was _ there a gun in the galaxy that could down that monster?

Surely leaving those goons to this thing would be not too far off from just killing them.

If Neena had any moral objections to using a scythe-armed murder machine as a “distraction”, their adrenaline had long since drowed their objectivity in what sounded like internal screaming.

As they brushed past Nyoka, pumping their arms wildly as they tried to imagine that, surely,  _ The Unreliable  _ couldn’t be that much further ahead, the bounty hunter had the sheer balls to yell out, “If she gains on us, I know a surefire way to get one offa you!”

Neena shrieked out an ineffectual yelp, followed up yelling, “Hell no! That thing’s getting to me over my dead fucking body!”

Nyoka laughed, a wild sound as she kept pace alongside her Captain. “You buy the ticket on Monarch, you take the ride, Ne!”

If not for the fact that they were moments from being torn to shreds by a pissed off gigantic bug, Neena would have yelled at the bounty hunter for the unwanted, impromptu choice of a nickname.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Busy weekend, which is why I am grateful that updates come on Monday, even if I scramble to get it ready to go. Thank fuck for Peet's coffee and forgetting I had a meeting I was supposed to attend. Sleeping through that helped, but I don't know if it'll be good for the strained relationship I have with my supervisors.
> 
> The rest of the chapters are something I've worked harder on maybe than I should have. Before my first fan fiction I wrote since I was in high school, I debated even adding plot to these stories; let's be honest here, there's plenty of work on this platform that does wonderful with at most what can be described as a flimsy plot with which to string the appeal of the piece--usually smut--together. And this isn't exactly the most popular fandom. As you might gather, however, I don't regret what I've done... what amounts to a novel length piece already, even before we get to the last ten chapters. 
> 
> I also look back on how long I've been doing this for, and even though I had to make the decision for both me and the good of the work to stick with once a week uploads, there is no doubt that it's taken a while to get this far, and it'll be past summer by the time I'm done uploading. I don't regret it but I've teased other people with another project I have to work on, and I stupidly threw out a Spring timeline to start on that. Well, we're through summer and I am not even finished with my original manuscript, let alone working on that. So... yeah.
> 
> At least I'll have a finished project that I am sharing, which is something worth being excited over.


	28. 27. The Fallbrook Hello

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With ADA calling Max "Captain DeSoto", the man might not be wrong with thinking that he could very well be the last Captain their crew will ever know.

They sat in a half-crouch, the Bounty Hunter and the Captain of the ship before her. Of course, the only one that it felt like Max was aware of, in his shock, was the brown-eyed person he had been afraid he would never see again. The man stared at the last people he had expected to see on this ship in silent shock.

The first thought that came to mind: how in the  _ hell _ had these raiders managed to miss these two hiding down here? The second thought—

Neena leaned in closer to him, in a low voice saying, “We just barely got on the ship. We used a Mantiqueen, chased everyone who was still out by the landing pad out. Lucky, no one came out to look for the guys who got chased off by the bug.” They paused, then added, “I can’t help but get the sneaking suspicion that these unprepared thugs don’t have the best means of communication with each other.” And then they winked at Max.

He snorted, not expecting the joke. When Max looked back into the eyes of the person he had begun to think that he would never see again, he realized that they were looking back at him with more than just stone sobriety. They looked haunted, beneath the veneer of devil-may-care overconfidence that was intoxicating.

Clearing his throat, looking between the grinning bounty hunter and the true Captain of  _ The Unreliable,  _ Max said, “I need to get back. The leader of the raiders just left for a second, she’ll be back any moment.”

Neena stopped and something odd, an emotion so uncharacteristic to them that Max couldn’t recognize it on their face at first, appeared. “She? She has you alone… in the cockpit?”

If he wasn’t so stressed, Max might have taken pleasure in the sight of blatant jealousy, as ridiculous as it was. And who they were unknowingly supposed to be jealous  _ of.  _ Max turned around, half afraid that he would find the raider in question standing in the doorway, pointing that gun of hers at his head for one last. Looking back at Neena, Max said, “Look, as happy as I am to see you—”

Nyoka finally spoke up, for once sounding—sober? “Betcha  _ real  _ happy to see Cap’n Hawthorne, here.”

Ignoring Nyoka, Max said, “However you got on the ship, do you think you could get back off of it, once we land? I don’t like our odds, once Catherine finds out what we’ve brought.”

Neena pursed their lips thoughtfully, standing back. “I don’t like those odds either.”

Nyoka, not to be forgotten, added, “Sounds to me like the only choice we got is to go down, guns blazin’. Just like how I always envisioned it.”

Max dropped his head, barely suppressing a sigh. “No, there’s got to be a better—”

Neena grabbed him, and for a split second, he thought that they were about to kiss him. Then the rightful Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ roughly maneuvered him, turning him around, hissing in time for him to realize what was going on, “Damn it, it’s  _ her. _ ”

He saw her, seemingly, thankfully, looking into the cockpit before she turned around, looked straight at him, a look of disbelief on her face. Sure enough, she followed up looking at him with pointing her gun at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Trying to decide it he was best off standing right where he was on the off chance that she might see movement behind him, Max stood straight up, stock still in terror as he garbled wordlessly before he could manage to say, “I—I heard a noise, the engi—” he rethought that, deciding that it wasn’t best to mention the damn thing that Neena and Nyoka were hiding behind. “Something fell in here, I thought, as the Captain, that I’d better investigate—”

The woman glared at him, jabbing towards him with her gun. “Alright, that’s enough, come out here. We’re about to land. Your boy caused some trouble, so he might have some trouble walking once we’re out there.”

Max, who had been walking across the workshop, stopped and stared at the woman. Already dreading the question, he asked, “What did you do to Felix?”

Motioning impatiently at him, she said, “More like what he did to hisself. Mouthed off, then tried to get the drop on me. Lucky I didn’t knock him cold through that damn refrigerator, woulda, too, if I didn’t need all a youse.”

For a brief moment, Max felt, instead of horrified for the boy, proud of him, grateful for what was likely the time that Felix’s outburst had given him. Time to see Neena. 

They both rocked as the ship landed. With his mind on the safety of Felix, Max hurried the rest of the way out of the workshop. “Alright, let me look at the boy, or, Ellie, she’s our medic, she needs to examine him—”

The woman growled, stopping him mid sentence. “You talk too fuckin’ much. Just get your ass out here. We’re gonna land any minute here, and it’s gonna be a all hands on deck situation. I’m gonna get the drop on ‘em.”

Max stared at her, realizing that this woman had to be, obviously, insane. She still meant to do the assault on Fallbrook, even with what had to be just ten guys with her, not including the crew whose ship she had stolen? “You can’t be  _ serious _ . Even you can’t see this going well, can’t you?”

He realized too late when he said it that he had done another one of his Maximillion DeSoto brand backhanded pieces of advice. Surprising him, the normally vindictive raider didn’t try to assault him or growl at him.

Instead, she grinned. “I may be a stupid sonofabitch, but I got a plan. Anyone who survives Monarch wilderness has to be able to think on their feet. And I’ve had me a plan since I was thrown outta that dumb little kingdom of Catherine’s.”

A sinking pit appeared in Max’s stomach. “What do you mean?” 

She smiled her jagged, broken smile at him and patted his shoulder, an action that was supposed to be reassuring. “We’re gonna try. Or we’re gonna go down together.” 

Before Max could try to press her, ADA spoke up. “A SubLight employee is approaching the entrance and wants to greet the Captain.”

_ Just why in the hell, of all visits to Fallbrook, does today have to be the day when someone has to come over to the ship?  _ Max closed his eyes, already knowing what the look would be on the face of the raider before he saw it.

She grinned. “No better time than the present. Hope you got some decent firepower in them weapons lockers of yours. It’s about to be your life versus those SubLight slaves.” She walked towards the row of lockers, throwing one open to reveal the collection of rifles. 

Then he remembered one thing that could keep him from being able to use a shotgun or tossball stick, an unwanted reminder of time spent in an incense-filled room but with a very different connotation to the far softer bindings. Max, grunting, strained against the ties on his wrists. “You need to get this off of me.”

She turned, looking at him. “Oh, yeah.” She shrugged, and as she walked up to him, the massive motioned for Max to turn. He hesitated, not relishing the thought of her behind him. As her hand glanced against the skin of his wrist, she said, “I guess I need you free for now, even though you don’t think I’m purty.”

Once Max’s hands were freed from the tie, he pulled his hands together, grunting as he massaged the circulation back into his hands. Not wanting to look back at her, Max walked over to the individual lockers closer to the door, ready to pull his pack on for what might be the last time.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Pulling his jacket on, Max finally turned to look at the head of the raiders, letting some of his anger seep through. “I can talk to the poor fool at the door, give you time to round up the rest.” 

She glared at him—great  _ Engineer _ , why did everyone he meet have to fight everything he said in the last half of a year?—and said, “I don’t like it. You do what I tell you to.” As Max continued to look at her, she made an annoyed grunt, then said, “Fine then. But if you do anything and try to switch sides, I’ll—”

Max sighed, his increased irritability in the face of what was seeming like certain death coming out as he said, “You’ll kill me, I get it. Honestly, I would rather do what I can to not die today, and I don’t think Catherine would take well to us bringing her ex-workers back to Fallbrook, so we wouldn’t fare too well, either, if we tried to turn you and your associates in.”

She didn’t look happy, but neither did the woman try to hit him. “Alright. Now you’re talkin’ sense.” She turned, then yelled up the stairs, “Carl, Yamato, bring those prisoners down, we got to get their war faces on. Everyone else, come down, too.”

As if to accent how dire their situation was becoming, someone knocked on the ship’s door, making Max jump in surprise.

The raider grinned at him. “Bet you didn’t think you were ever gonna sack this dumb little hideaway, did you?”

Max answered honestly, his heart embedded in his throat. “No, I did not.” He could almost  _ feel _ the presence of his shotgun, so close to him that it hurt. He thought about doing it, just grabbing the thing and blasting her away, leaving nothing more than a reeking corpse and a mess for SAM to clean up.

Which brought to mind, even if only for a split second, the question of where SAM was—

The sound, of everyone coming down the stairs—Ellie, Parvati, and Felix, with multiple goons standing behind them—drew Max’s attention. As Ellie was shoved past the stairs, she let out a sharp cry.

“Come on, guys, I’ve cooperated this entire time! Could you  _ please  _ not man handle me?”

Parvati rose her eyes up, catching and pinning Max with her gaze. “What’s gonna happen to us?”

Fighting to not lose his nerve and simply look away from her, he answered, “We’re here in Fallbrook because... we’re going to ransack it.”

The woman gasped, her eyes wide with horror. “No. That can’t—that can’t be  _ true _ . Nobody sane thinks they can possibly take on SubLight. Even  _ Junlei _ can’t get ‘em offa Groundbreaker.”

The head of the raiders broke in, declaring, “We’re not just gonna ransack this place together. We’re gonna kill everyone, then watch it all burn down.”

Felix—who, thankfully at first glance, at least, looked not really worse for wear—spoke up, his voice high with emotion. “No, we can’t do that! We’re not gonna try to attack Catherine!”

She turned, looked at the young man as a sneer grew on her face. “Oh yes we can. We’re gonna kill the bitch and all of her flying monkeys, else we’re gonna hang together.”

Max, so caught up in the personality of the madwoman who had taken control of the ship, forgot about the rest of her henchmen. One spoke up, scratching at the side of his neck. “Hey… think it’s a good idea to free ‘em, boss?”

This time she looked directly at Felix, then walked—stalked—over to him. She ducked close to him, making the man flinch. “We’re all gonna work together and get through this, or I’ll shoot you now. How’s that sound?” To make her point, she rose her pistol back up, pressing the side of it against his head. “Just say the word, and I can paint your blood on your little friend here’s face.”

Parvati’s eyes widened and she almost bleated out, “Oh my gosh,  _ Felix! _ ”

Ellie spoke up, her voice a harsh snap. “Just say yes!”

And, before anyone else could say anything, the sound, of someone knocking, hard, on the ship’s door drew their attention. 

It was ADA who spoke up. “The messenger has brought a man carrying a gun with him. I would advise that if you do not answer that there is a strong possibility that we could have even more SubLight employees wielding guns and ready to demand that we open the door. In a very insistent manner.”

Max’s throat constricted, he felt like the world was starting to spin out of control.

He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Somewhere inside of him, the man could feel shame for his weakness. He believed that if he were only Neena that he would have the right thing to say. Or could do some sort of a daring rescue, disarming and perhaps holding the enormous head of the raiders hostage. 

But at the end of the day, he was just Maximillion DeSoto, who needed Neena to give him direction and strength. Without his shotgun or a tossball stick, he was as helpless without his Captain as the rest of them were.

It felt like time righted itself and things were no longer still as Felix nearly shouted, “Alright! I’ll—I’ll do it.”

The raider pulled her gun away. WIth what sounded like cheer, she said, “Well, now we’re talkin’ sense here, boy. Tim, untie his hands. Madison and Larry, do the same for the others. Let’s get these people armed and make ‘em earn their freedom.”

Eliie snapped at the raider, saying, “You’re as stupid as you look! We tell them that you captured us, then they’ll let us go!”

It wasn’t the head raider, but whom Max supposed was Madison who answered, part of the way with undoing the ties on her wrists, shoving Ellie and making her groan. “They’re not gonna like you guys too much, coming in here with the people who’re about to shoot the place up.”

And, who Max guessed had to be Larry, undoing the ties on Parvarti’s bindings, said, “Even if they don’t shoot you, we won’t hesitate to kill if you try anything stupid.”

Ellie, true to character, smacked her lips and said, “I think we’re already covered with you guys on the  _ stupid _ front.”

The head raider ignored her, turning to look back at Max. “You guys keep your guns filled with ammo?” When Max at first hesitated to answer, wondering if he could lie and save them from this fight, she followed it up with an angry, “Try lyin’ to me, boy, just  _ try _ lyin’ to me.” So Max nodded, worried that if he pushed them much harder that she might start trying to make a point by executing one of the crew members. “Get yourself a gun, and the same goes for the rest a youse.”

Max reached in and grabbed his shotgun, aware of how for once the feel of the short range heavy hitter didn’t inspire him much with relief. He turned, watching as his crew members walked up next to him, opening their own lockers up. As he went back into his locker to pick up his modded tossball racket, about to sling it over his shoulder by the strap he had added to it to make for a bit of physical insurance in case he ever ran out of rounds, Parvati ducked next to him and asked him a question that had been plaguing him as well. 

“Have you got a plan?”

Aware that they were being watched, Max just cleared his throat, turned to look at her. Hoped that the smile on his face wasn’t as unsure as it felt on his mouth. 

The head of the raiders pointed at them with her gun and snarled out, “You,  _ Captain _ , answer the fucking door, try to not look suspicious.”

Max hesitated for a moment too long, in his panic not fully registering that when she said “Captain” that she meant him. As her face creased in annoyance, he turned, nodding at the three other members of  _ The Unreliable _ ’s crew. They looked back at him, terror bright in their eyes, but something that Neena would have been proud of, a resolute sense of accepting their fate, or perhaps a feeling that they were going to at least be together for whatever was going to come, seemed to descend over all of them.

The sight of their faces inspired Max, who couldn’t help but be glad that whatever was going to happen to them that at least Neena and Nyoka would be out of it. Although something in him said that they were not about to watch them get sent out to be slaughtered and not do something about it.

But for now, no matter what was to come, it was up to him to lead these people in this failed invasion. Hoped that at least one of them could make it out of this alive.

He nodded to the three faces of the people he had come to know very well, then pushed past them, having to remind himself to lower his shotgun, to not look as suspicious as he actually was. As Max got closed in on the door, the head raider yelled out to him, “Make ‘em come in here.”

Max stopped midstep, turning to look at the raider. “How do you possibly figure that I can make them come in here?”

One side of the raider’s lip raised in a cold sneer. “Well, you can “figure” that, smart boy. Make ‘em come in here or I might make an example out of one of your crew members.”

Max turned, approached the door with what felt like lead in his chest. As he rose his hand up to hit the door panel, the sound of someone hitting the other side of the door made him flinch. Raising his voice in what he at least hoped sounded plausible for annoyed and not scared out of his mind, he said, “Alright, I’m here!”

The door slid open, revealing five SubLight goons. It seemed that in the time ADA had spoken up, the amount of people set to greet them on the landing pad had spawned.

Max’s face had drawn into a look of terror, then he became hyper aware of how he must look and he forced his mouth into a once characteristic frown. “Hello, how can  _ The Unreliable  _ help you today?”

One of the goons looked at him coldly, hardly seeming to blink. “We’re gonna need you people to step outside. All of you.”

Max froze, his finger hovering close to the trigger of his shotgun where he had rested its welcoming weight against his hip. In the face of not knowing what to do or how to answer, he forced a smile on his lips, scoffing. “Now, hold on, why do we need to—”

Another SubLight goon answered, his voice a clipped roughness. “Step out of the ship, all of you.” To show how serious and impatient he was, the man grabbed onto Max’s shoulder and nearly tossed the unready man back past him.

Max, unsure if he wanted to bring the other three into this, staggered for his footing, turned and looked at the other members of the crew of  _ The Unreliable,  _ decided that he would just do what the goons wanted of them, at least before the other goons inside of the ship starting shooting. 

“Alright then. We don’t want to cause a disturbance.” He motioned for them, saw the hesitation in the other crew members’ eyes before they walked with him. As they walked down the stairs, Max was sure at any moment that the raiders would shoot them full of holes. He was amazed they had all made it off of the ship’s steps, with the irritated, and very likely, soon to be dead SubLight goon standing at the top of the stairs.

Max had never been so relieved to smell sulfuric air. But on the landing pad he only wished that he could breathe lighter, as it felt like Max’s chest had become filled with the emotion that had seized him before, and his mouth tasted heavy with coppery adrenaline, terror. It was a wonder that anyone didn’t see the truth of their situation written on his face, in the panic that had to of filled his eyes. 

_ Just two days ago I was sure I could stop all of my wandering soon, learn how to be content with the love of someone to guide me. _

Knowing that he still had a role to play, he looked at the SubLight goons, comforted only by the close presences of the other three crew members who had not yet been shot. “I don’t know why we couldn’t talk on the ship—”

And, before he could get the sentence out of his mouth the goons parted, stepping out of the way to reveal the face of someone that Max had seen earlier, standing next to the grinning bounty hunter.

They were dressed in their scouting and looting best, an androgynous outfit in the form of an open-collar work shirt and a black undershirt tucked into tight-fitting pants that their tailor had made. Their intriguingly curling black hair hung around their face in a mess and hung over her shoulders, freed likely from where they had had to crawl around in a tunnel in the ship in and out, and they had sweated, moisture clinging to their warm, velvet-dark skin, their eyes full of that infernal light that most looked natural to them.

Even with how their eyes were bright, Neena’s face revealed some of their own panic, then their expression broke into a relieved grin. “Hello again DeSoto, how was taking command in my ship?”

He wanted to hold the Captain, the rightful Captain, take them into his arms and never let go. Instead he relaxed, almost dropping the shotgun from his hand “How… how did the two of you escape…”

Nyoka answered, hands on their hips in a hero’s pose. “Same way we got back in the ship in the first place.”

For what felt like the first time since the incident had occurred, Parvati spoke, sounding relieved, almost happy. “ _ The engineer’s path _ ! Ya’ll got through the repair panel.”

Ellie asked the other question that had occurred to Max. “But what did you guys do once you got off?”

Neena, smiling as they looked at their ship’s sawbones, said, “We got backup, told Catherine what happened. She said as long as none of her people get hurt, that she’s willing to let this go.”

One of the goons spoke up, almost interrupting Neena. “Just to remind you; we still have some assholes on that ship to deal with.” He motioned back down the ramp that led down the landing pad. “Get out of here and let us do our jobs.” 

Max knew he should have counted his lucky stars that they were still breathing at all, but something, a defensiveness over the ship he had come to love, as well as no small amount of anger towards the woman in particular who had molested and pressed a gun to his head, pushed him to say, “They’re gonna be ready, they’re armed—”

The goon interrupted him. “I said get off the goddamn landing pad and let us do our job.”

Max raised his hands up in defeat, then he followed a smirking Neena down the steps, with the rest of the crew surrounding them. Maybe he had lost his mind but with the fear of death behind them, Max felt the sudden urge to grab his Captain and press them against a wall, deal with the growing, blooming ache he felt in his lower abdomen. But that sudden desire of his was still no match for the relief he felt. They were all  _ alive,  _ alive and it was because Neena had come through for them all.

He could wait to go through with thanking the Captain of  _ The Unreliable  _ for saving them in his own way. Preferably after he could get back on the ship and get a fresh change of underwear.

Off the landing pad, Max watched, with no small amount of anxiety, as not just the five goons but at least twenty more marched onto the ship, guns at the ready. At the sight, Nyoka let out a loud laugh.

"This shit's crazy, even by Monarch standards!"

With everyone watching it, like the platoon of SubLight goons were the most interesting aetherwave drama that any had ever seen, Ellie said, " Are you sure this is crazy by this planet's standards? Did we or did we not facilitate a coup on Catherine's behalf, what, a month ago?"

Before Nyoka could answer, Felix added, "Never a dull day off the Groundbreaker!"

Parvati added, with a loud sigh, "Gee, I think I could do with less excitement. Thought I was gonna  _ die  _ back there!"

The true Captain of  _ The Unreliable  _ said, "Come on, guys, you know by now that I'll always be there to pull us all out of trouble."

Everyone laughed at that. Everyone, Max couldn't help but notice, except Ellie.

_ What a fucking mess this day’s become. _

He was a well known clueless rage monster—once upon a time—but even he could tell that there was something—something  _ wrong— _ between the two. After all, when did any of them, even Nyoka, wander through Monarch, alone?

There was no chance for him to even consider broaching the subject with either, as the sound, not of gunfire, but of people leaving the ship en masse, drew everyone's attention to it.

Raiders (some, more than likely, these people's ex-co workers) were marched off the ship, their hands behind their backs, for a change of pace, this time in SubLight cuffs. As the raiders were walked off, Max was shocked to realize that the whole thing had ended, sans any gunfire. 

And the person he had expected would never go down without firing a shot was brought out last. The head of the raiders rose her head up as she was brought out of the ship, seemed to make direct, unerring eye contact with Max. As she recognized him, the head of the raiders smiled. 

It felt like his skin was about to crawl, right off his bones at the sight.

As if guessing what he was feeling, Max felt a hand, belonging to his ship's Captain, close over one of his shoulders. 

"Hey," Neena said, So softly that only he could hear, "It's over. we're all together again, right?"

Max shook his head, clearing his mind free of the feeling that he was back in the ship. "Yeah, I know."

If Neena was going to say anything else it was stopped as the raiders were marched past them. Headed towards wherever SubLight kept their prisoners—before whatever more than likely unspeakably cruel or at least, barbaric torment was certain to be doled out to them in great quantities.

As the group was marched past, Max only realized that the undisputed queen of Fallbrook was among them when the woman spoke up. "Georgia. And here I was thinking that me exilin' you was gonna be the last I saw of you. What's the reason for this unexpected reunion?"

There was no doubt who "Georgia" was, although Max hadn't expected that name for the person it belonged to. As she came close to the crew whose ship she had taken, she spoke to Catherine, a broad, jagged grin stretched wide across her face. "Little girl, you can't exile the rightful owner from their own house. We talked about that. You remember. You ended our last talk by ambushin' old Georgia and throwin' her out on her ass."

Catherine laughed. "Innocent old Georgia, are we now, you conniving old bitch? I seem to recall your hand in the company cookie jar so often it's a wonder you didn't get diabetes. Wait. You don't have diabetes now, do you?"

Surprising the crew, who could do little more than watch what was happening in shocked silence, Neena spoke up. “Can I trust that this is going to be the last I have to worry about ex-SubLight employees taking over my ship in the future?”

This caught the attention of both of the people who were arguing with each other, but especially Georgia. Her eyes darted between Neena and Max before she stared directly at him. With a quirk of one side of her lips, she said, “I thought the ship was  _ yours _ .”

Neena answered before he could. “The ship’s mine.” And, shocking Max—perhaps he was seeing too much in the statement—they added, “The man’s mine, too.”

Something flickered in her eyes—anger?—as she looked directly at Neena. “You people made a  _ big _ mistake. You had the chance to fight for us, for the future of SubLight, and you chose not to do it.” She turned, the full force of her anger burning into Max as she looked at him. “And _ you _ —you lied to me. Do you know many queens who like to be fucked over?”

Max crossed his arms over his chest, wished that his heart wasn’t beating against his arms. That he didn’t feel like he had, indeed, made some huge mistake. Nevertheless, he said what he most wanted to in that moment. “What queen? I don’t see any queen here.”

Felix let out a loud, guffawing laugh and the other crew members followed, with Ellie calling out, “Tell us how you really feel, Maxy!”

Even though the look on Georgia’s face was thunderous, Max started to feel some of his courage returning to him. Still, he decided it was best to leave furter talking with the actual Captain of  _ The Unreliable.  _ And Neena did not disappoint.

“Alright, It’s time we leave you to your fate. Think we need to be going, seen enough of Monarch to last a lifetime for most of us, I think—”

Catherine interrupted them, motioning for her goon to take the raiders away. “What, you’re leaving so soon?” She grinned, walking over to clap Neena on the shoulder. “We did all of this without a single shot fired! I say we celebrate, or in the parlance of Monarch, we party like fucking beasts and you guys get some time in a bed on solid ground for the night.”

Now that the sheer terror was starting to leach out of him, Max started to realize that while it wasn’t by their internal clocks much more than halfway through the day, that it was sundown on this side of Monarch. And one thing about Fallbrook was true; if you could plug your nose, this town at sundown was truly beautiful to behold, with the remains of the sun clinging to foliage and giving a soft, warm glow to the faces of everyone.

The raiders, to Catherine’s decree, had been walked away. Still, it felt to Max as though he could not shake the presence of Georgia—and her ominous warning, in spite of how laughable it should have been, now that she and her friends were in cuffs. 

Neena winced, scratching the back of their neck. “I don’t know. Feels like we’ve pressed our luck, I don’t know if I want to stick around here much longer, with everything that’s happened just today...”

Catherine laughed, throwing her arms out wide. “C’mon! I’ll get your guys beds in my hotel, kick some people out for the night. I want to share the night with you, as a token of not just sorry for having to deal with some unfinished SubLight business, but also as a thank you for helping us deal with it.” Neena looked like they were about to say no when Catherine shook her head, closing the distance between them so she could pat Neena on their back. “C’mon. I haven’t had a chance to hear about the adventures I’ve been learnin’ about second hand, straight from the canid’s mouth. And besides, drinks’re on me tonight, just for your crew.”

Neena looked at her, then looked at Max, as if considering their options. When Max shrugged in answer—a classic,  _ whatever you want,  _ Neena looked at the true queen of Fallbrook and said, “Well, what’s the harm in it?” When Catherine answered by nodding sagely, they clicked their teeth with their tongue and asked, “Really, you mean it, free drinks?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am almost through what I hope is most of the first fourth of revisions on my novel. I really, honestly, thought that there was enough to work with this damn story of mine that I would be done working on it in *spring*. If you look at your calendar--it is not. It's actually less "revision" and more "rewrite", when I've added over 30k of words into the whole project since re-starting it in May. A more reasonable person would say to focus on the original work to get it done; especially in light of the fact that I have plans for making a lot of work I've already done into a new project, following this one. Pushing back my sci fi dark romance that was supposed to be my second project now to my third and so forth. Are you following this, because there will be a test.
> 
> I put sudden attack of plot into the tags, I do hope you've noticed that. I've obviously thought it was good enough to share, so obviously I am partial to it, I just hope everyone else likes it. You know, the funny thing is, I got some lovely comments on this story yesterday (hi Bonymaloney if you ever make it this far), and on Wattpad I got some comments that seems to say that the reader cared about the plot--more than enough to read as far as the 70th chapter (I AM SO LONG WINDED IN EVERYTHING) but apparently not enough to leave an "upvote" (which is a thing on that platform; something grievously missing from this one, I might add) on any chapter, as far as I can tell. And their comments are about their annoyance with the passivity of my MC. *sigh* 
> 
> I say feelings and impressions are never wrong, but I think that I might see too much of my MC in the original drafts of it, and where others see an unchanging person who lets everyone control her I see someone who's making a journey and decisions that, maybe they don't see the subtlety of or honestly don't appreciate the conclusions she's made, given her disposition and character arc. Then again I AM revising the whole thing I wrote back between 2017-2018 for a REASON. 
> 
> But getting off of my bitchmobile for a second--I feel like I never do it enough, but thank you to everyone who's followed this long. To everyone who's left kudos, it means a lot when the world around you likes to make you feel small, to feel like you make a difference to someone else's day. I doubt my choices with everything, including how I've handled this project, and taking this long to upload it, mostly out of necessity (but I kind of also want other writers in the canon to get their chance on the top of the weekly update list), so it does something to see that I haven't managed to alienate the fandom wholly.
> 
> But the comments--the COMMENTS astonish me. Coming from Wattpad, where I am not shy in saying that most comments are the kind I just pointed out or are blindly effusive (nice... but... I already have a huge enough ego), it really is eye opening to realize that perhaps for the first time in my life, I am making work that at least SEEMS to appeal most to people at least older than their mid twenties. Maybe I'm imagining it, but it feels that way to me. And this is with fan fiction.
> 
> Sorry, maybe that is unsurprising to others, but to me it is simply astonishing.
> 
> So in spite of this already being an essay, I think until this thing ends I will be thanking someone whose comments have meant a lot to me in these notes, starting with--
> 
> Thank you, Danypooh80, who might be one person more obsessed than the weirdo who wrote a 40 chapter smut with plot thing, hello, how are you doing?, who also keeps up with this. I know, I've thanked you several times already, but just imagine I'm thanking you each week for pushing me to keep working, period, whether it's fan fiction or old-ass novel.
> 
> Is this note long enough, I'm just not sure--


	29. 28. Thinking About You

Max had told himself that he wouldn’t overindulge, in spite of the promised open bar. It was a promise that none, excepting perhaps Parvati, pretended to want to make. Before more than one drink was even poured, however, a brawl happened, surprisingly quickly for a group of people not supposed to be drunk yet, and someone, it might have been Ellie, suggested an old school Annie Oakley style shooting competition, which she summarily won, although Max got the impression that everyone was more excited about the promise of the drinks and food inside than in shooting hastily made bottles in a row. Or that most did not actually know who Annie Oakley was in the first place. 

They settled into their places in the bar with near frightening ease and took in all of the hospitality that a SubLight frontier town could offer. In the rowdy, dimly lit room, Neena Castillo sat at first next to him, then almost before he could know what was happening, his body ended up more often than not a borderline handrail and seat back for the only small in size hero.

Maybe he should have felt at least a bit of worry, when the reason why he gave up on that dream of near sobriety was dashed because of Neena Castillo. The rightful Captain of _The Unreliable_ had borderline downed him in liquor, hugging him to them in an embrace that made him feel inebriated before he took a single drink. And that was before the damned person in question had near thrown themself onto his lap, with what could be construed as only the barest of excuses, in the throes of laughing at someone’s story or groaning in what he could only surmise was a bare excuse of being tired or addled from drink. They hugged him, face planting against his chest—and lap. Based on the looks he got from anyone who saw it, the canid was plain out of the bag, if Neena had wanted to keep this side of their personal life a secret. Or, perhaps, some of these people would assume he was their emotional support counselor.

One strangely familiar goon in particular, whom Max could recall from the memories of the person who had a bad habit of sliding their hand underneath the table to grope his closest thigh to them, could not seem to stop staring at the couple with a mixture of repressed anger and unvarnished longing. Oddly, it less reminded the inebriated ship’s Counselor not so much that he had become obsessed utterly with someone who was not some pure maiden, but rather filled him with an embarrassing amount of pride.

Captain Castillo, after all, had not been so lavish in their PDA with anyone ever since they had tried—and failed—to find pleasure in relationships with their first few paramours so very, very long ago. To put it plainly, based on his, admittedly, singular experience in this area, Max was positively beaming with pride.

But, based on the sustained, emotional stare he could recall too easily which he had gotten from the captain theirself as he had walked through the crowd of SubLight goons, Max was already riding a near high from the impression he got of all of this meaning more than that.

But maybe it wasn’t just Neena’s fault that he started to keep pace with the booze guzzling female and female-bodied members of the ship; the feeling, being like he was so close to dying, or of seeing Neena for the last time and then having all of that tension lifted from his shoulders, and then to be fawned over in public for the first time in his life, was dizzying. Even for someone used to getting into all kinds of situations. 

At least, for the past half of a year, he had.

And what a legendary year it had been for not just the man, but for the Halcyon system. What’s more, the reason for all of that chaos and change had chosen him for their… 

Well, he wasn’t entirely certain _what_ he was to Neena. 

Even though Max had been increasingly sure that it was time for him to push that point home—to put a label on what they were together, even if only so he didn’t have to get into a very unflattering brawl with one of these goons who might do more yet than just leer at his utterly compelling Captain—Max had the feeling that he could wait to stress over this point until they had left this accursed place.

Besides, Max was more than welcome to the idea of spending one night without being the sole grown-up of the ship. As it turned out, the wild and fun energy of Halcyon was more sobering to experience when it came in the form of someone threatening to kill everyone he had grown to care about and take the place he had grown to feel was his home. 

About the time that Max had found himself in a surprisingly heated conversation with an unsurprisingly contrarian Ellie about the crucial merits of regional tossball styles, he realized that Neena had disappeared. Damn, they must know too well about his weakness for argumentation, how he had a propensity to be sucked into its gravity until Max could easily forget everything around him. It was something he was not proud of, but as he leaned back in his seat, hand awkwardly messing at the hair on the back of his head, Max glanced at the goon who had been eyefucking his Captain, and felt no small amount of relief when he saw that the man was talking to someone else.

When Neena returned, grinning at him in that aetherwave showman style that seemed uniquely endearing to them, it felt, strangely, like he could breathe again. When he asked where they had gone for as long as they had, Neena's smile turned into perhaps what he only imagined looked unwholesome. 

They ducked closer to him, the luminous darkness in Neena's eyes begging him to see far too much inside of them. “Can’t a person go off for a few minutes without having their… _counselor_ wonder where they went?”

That was the end of that, with Max deciding that he would just have to let Neena keep their secretive nature, unless he wanted to turn into a nag. And tonight he did not want any reason for his Captain to not want to be around him. Besides, he had no reason to feel worried. _Jealous_. Max had, after all, been in their head, Could even conservatively say he'd seen in their heart.

And, no matter what Neena could say, now, Max had gotten the overwhelming impression not just in that very special first half a day that they had spent together but in the months since, that whatever—either of them—needed from an arrangement like this, deep down, Neena knew that they fit each other like the pieces of some broken teacup that had been dropped and mended to make it whole. Kintsugi, that had been the term he had learned of once, damned though Max would be to recall where he had learned it, to mend while making the original more beautiful and unique in the process.

Although he did not doubt that—with Neena's high-grade education which had inoculated them from the dullness brought on by a lack of worldliness—they weren't ignorant of the term, Max understood well the attitude of the brightest star in the Halcyon system. Knew that Neena was more likely to refer to them, all together on board, as the shattered pieces of a bottle of cheap grade vodka than a teacup.

Tea or vodka; neither did matter this night as Max was far more interested in non-Board approved moonshine and leaden testosterone, caused by the brush of an arm, the whiff of sweat-dewed skin, the oddly possessive grasp and embrace from the only physically shorter than average Captain Castillo.

As he indulged in shots of the stuff that their Sublight hosts had assured the guests wasn't just some raw accelerant alongside some of the best of what SubLight could bring into Monarch for beer, the Captain kept him pressed firmly against their side, trying to keep up with the endless questions that Catherine battered Neena with.

“Okay, so… you’re telling _me_ that the people in Byzantium keep putting these comment cards in these boxes, even though they know no one’s comin’ to get them, let alone _read_ them?” When Neena only smirked in answer, the woman threw her head back and laughed. “Oh—this is why nobody gets keys to that damn place. If we had a way to get there, you can be damn sure that Lilya would have us take that city of pitiful children by surprise. We’d all be living in that golden palace, have them cleaning the streets. I’d have me a retinue of at least ten a them dandy boys as my husbands.” 

Neena laughed and, whether unintentionally or purposefully, they reached over, wrapping an arm around the small of Max’s back. “From my experience: this place of yours, this room, is more fun than all of Byzantium put together."

As if on cue, a thug, who had been threatening to start to do it the moment he had walked in with a worn-looking… banjo?—began to play the instrument. Max was shocked; he didn’t know that someone could even _strum_ that fast. It was a pounding, frenetic rhythm that, while obnoxious to his ears at first, became strangely, compellingly unignorable. And then the thug began to sing, a higher pitch than Max would have first assumed, a fast, maddening spiral.

  


_I could never pretend that I don't love you._

_You could never pretend that I'm your man._

_That's exactly the way that I want it;_

_that's exactly the way that I am._

  


_And you call me in the mornin’ with your troubles._

_Takin' it downtown every night._

_I could never place the stars at night above ya._

_I got my hands on the ground,_

_and you know I'm right._

  


_You wait so long_

_You wait so long_

_You wait so long_

_You wait so long._

  
  


With his attention solely on to the unexpected banjo playing, Max missed the head of Fallbrook sharing a meaningful look with the Captain of _The Unreliable._

When he looked back, Max caught Catherine smirking, seemed to be looking at Neena with an appreciative glint. "You don't say. Even with… with the, uh," the head of Fallbrook leaned forward, closer on the table and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "D'you mean that? 'cause, if you do, do you think you could give us a review like that? I get the feeling that you're gonna be a real big deal sometime, with all a the big waves you folk've been making and all. Maybe we could use a good review from an independent ship Captain, lettin' people know we're a great place to come, rest your head a night, a week—hell, I get this wild rapt that's been up my ass, I'll get something built that's good for guests who want to live here on a more permanent basis."

The banjo player broke in, making all conversation stop as he wailed out an instrument-accompanied, _Nothing happens in this burnt out town, anymore!_

Max's mouth curved into a smile. "Never mind the smell, come for the view and the peerless hospitality?"

Catherine laughed, smacking her mug of beer onto the heavy metal table with a resounding _clang._ " _Knew_ there was something I liked about you. Even when you were bein' a… a..."

Max offered, "A repugnant asshole?"

That made Catherine laugh anew, swabbing at the corners of her eyes. Her next question was directed at Neena. "Sis, where did you _get_ this guy?"

Before Neena could answer that, the loud sound—unmistakably, of something breaking—drew everyone's eyes to the bar. Even the banjo player stopped. Looking, Max discovered that Felix was standing on a half-broken table, a tossball stick in hand and a crazed look in his eyes. Gone in a moment had been the lingering doubts that Max had been feeling, that the boy had sustained some kind of an injury from his run in with Georgia that he had not been honest about.

Neena leaped up, the absence of their hand on Max's back more discomforting than he might have wanted to think about. "Ah—kiddo, no, _nono_ —handle your booze or don't _drink_ , don't wanna pay for anything you break in here—!"

Max watched the rightful Captain of _The Unreliable_ hop into damage control, perhaps more zealously than they usually would have due to the liquor that flowed through their system. A little inebriated himself, Max watched their ass as they hurried to the bar, assisted by a nearly sober but still wine-touched Parvati. 

By the Engineer's grand _fucking_ plan, he loved the feel that the cheeks of their ass cradling his cock...

Max realized too late that he might be caught helplessly ogling Neena like the horny dog he actually was. He tried to look deliberate he leaned back, taking in a deep, steadying breath of air. He wasn't drunk—at least, _that_ far gone on liquor alone—but he was still surprised when Catherine spoke up, reminding him that she was still there.

"So, what's the plan. With you guys, I mean; and that ship."

Max looked at the ever so kind—uncharacteristically—head of Fallbrook, and took a saving drink of his own liquor. "That, my host, is a question best served for my Captain."

Catherine, grinning, leaned over the table. "Come on, you gotta give me _something_. Besides getting my hands on more business than I can shake a stick at or mention without breaking any terms of agreements to mention out loud, don't get the wrong idea about us bein' a wild town. It gets pretty dull up here, ‘rest of the time. Except when folks bring my enemies to me." Max winced, still not drunk enough to forget that still fresh debacle. "Hey, don't worry about it. Everything went well. If not for the fast thinking of your Captain, we mighta been up shit creek without a paddle. But if you wanted to give me a cIue about what you folks plan in fucking up next, well…"

Max scoffed, a hand pressed defensively to his chest. "What makes you think that _I_ know what Neena has planned?"

The head of Fallbrook looked at him meaningfully, shrugged, and asked, "Y _ou,_ specifically? Well— "

Whatever the woman was about to say was interrupted when the person in question returned to the table, with a man who smelled of spilled Lemon Slap kept trapped under their hooked right arm. 

Near the back, the banjo player had since started up fresh, and belted more lyrics from a different song out as he strummed his banjo to it.

  


_‘cuz I, I wanna feel that blood rushin' in my veins._

_I don't want this night to ever turn into day._

_If I could only do all them things I wanted to,_

_while that spirit's rushin' now, in my veins._

_Yes, if I could only do all them things I wanted to..._

  


With Felix giggling, incessantly, Neena looked from either of their tablemates and asked, with what Max could not guess as being an actual note of sincere or false scandal and a dramatic prop of their elbow onto the table, Neena asked, "Can you _believe_ how these young people choose to celebrate?"

Surprising everyone, given the sight of how far gone he was, Felix let out an obnoxious, nasally laugh and said, "Was trying to make _you_ proud of me!"

Neena sighed, depositing the ragdoll-like Felix onto the bench seat next to them as Neena took back their previous seat. "Well, I would tell you to do as I say, but I don't think I've ever made all that good a case for myself or my supposed maturity. That being said—"

Felix, with the support of his Captain's hand off of him, fell off of the bench back first, his arms thrown out in front of him as though he had fallen in some purposeful trust fall.

As Felix groaned pitifully, Neena softly said, “Then again, even in my glory days, I tried to not make a gigantic mess of myself."

The banjo player was beating the strings hard, yowling out more lyrics.

  


_Tonight I'll put that match down to that gasoline._

_Spin that rusty wheel, and be burned by the steam._

_Tonight I'll take that main line, direct into the drain._

_If you don't see me tomorrow, know I died as I pleased..._

  


It would have been incorrect to be able to say that the thought hadn’t crossed Max's mind—multiple times—but he was wonderfully surprised when Neena looked at him and said, “I don't know if I've ever seen so clear a sign that the party's over. Wanna walk me to that private cabin, in case some wild raider tries to kidnap your Captain?"

Max's mouth was very much in danger of dropping open, so he stood up, hands extended out in welcome. "By all means—”

Fitting with the theme of the night, which had become interruption, Ellie broke away from the SubLight goons she had been partying with and ran over, saying, "Damn it, you old folks are _not_ about to leave me here to drink this bar dry, alone!"

Max couldn't help but be drawn to look at the young tossball enthusiast, still splayed out on the ground, grinning up blankly at the ceiling.

Neena crossed their arms over their chest, cocking their eyebrows at Dr. Fenhill, a near mirror of the look that Max was used to seeing on the doctor's face. "Come on. I still smell like mud and sweat. And besides," Neena looked at the host of the private party, nodding. "don’t want to sleep through your event in the morning, right?"

Catherine beamed at them in a way that she only seemed able to reserve for the Captain of _The Unreliable_ , sinking back into her seat, arms drawn back behind her head. "Oh, you know me. I'm gonna make an event outta it. The executions’re gonna be a real show stopper. Gonna have to charge tickets, don't know the last time that we had one of her give themselves up to get the ol' final gun salute in the square."

Max stared at Catherine, too astonished at first to say anything, then he heard himself say, “Sorry, you’re going to—execute them, tomorrow? Wouldn’t that be something that comes _after_ a trial?”

It was the first time since the raiders had been put in handcuffs that Max saw something hard in Catherine’s eyes. “I would expect you to know better than to question my methods, but I am gonna remind you; these people came onto your ship, threatened your life, then came to _my_ town and tried to invade it. Now, I’m only gonna mention it one time, but usually, when someone messes with one a' Lilya’s sources of income, then that person gets to see the wrong end of a gun. Call our methods old school, but nobody—and I mean, _nobody_ —makes the same mistake of crossing SubLight twice.” The way she looked at Max sent a shiver up his spine. “To put it frank, you guys bringin’ Georgia and her band of assholes in here coulda been grounds enough to end up next to them tomorrow. But it turns out, the whole thing was actually a blessing in disguise. Got me all of those little nematodes in one place, now I can get rid of the biggest danger to Fall’, till the next group of losers I toss out decides to band together to try to take down the queen. Hell, after this stunt, I think the new Fallbrook retirement party’s gonna have to end with lead 'stead of a gold watch.”

The bar had gotten deathly quiet; the banjo player had even stopped playing. About to apologize, feeling whatever buzz and happy feelings that the drinking had given, leaving him in one violent monologue, Neena intercepted, saying, “Okay, alright, he didn’t mean anything by it. You do things the SubLight way, we’ll be on our way, out of your hair, real soon.” They snorted. "But, c'mon let’s be real for a second; I know you don't give anyone anything gold on purpose."

Thank fuck, everything that Max knew he lacked in actual charm Neena made up for with him. Crass but charming, nevertheless.

Catherine’s eyes seemed less horrifically bright with anger as she looked at the Captain. “Fair point, you’ve got me there. And maybe it _is_ time you two go for the night.”

A bellwether for the mood of the bar—the banjo player started to play anew, a different song with a faster beat and with a stronger narrative to it that seemed to be about very old world religion. If he was sober, less worried about angering the queen of Fallbrook—and, admittedly, less eager for a shower and, yes, very horny—Max would have been intrigued enough by the lyrics to want to listen to it.

Max thought he could finally breathe again as Neena gently pushed him away from the table and he was walking towards the entrance of the bar with them holding onto him. As they made it a few feet away, though, the sound—it had to be either Ellie or Nyoka—letting out a wolf whistle, then a loud laugh, had Max turning around to look for the source of the noise. He found both women sat across from each other, looking at him expectantly.

Neena called out to them, their voice betraying only a bit of annoyance. “Yeah, yeah, when I wanna hear it from the bit rafters I’ll ask you guys.”

As they left, Max caught some of the lyrics that the player sang out, accompanied by the clapping of the goons in the bar to the beat. 

  


_Well now, I ain't no preacher, no preacher man's son,_

_I done some bad things, but I like to have my fun._

_A thousand ways to heaven, a thousand ways to hell,_

_well I say, the good Lord helps those that help themselves—_

_so help yourselves now!_

  


It wasn’t until they were through the building and heading out into the heavily lit path outside that Max looked over as his companion. Gazing at them, Max's nerves began to win over his horniness, eagerness to be alone with Neena—finally. The counselor couldn’t guess the major reason why Neena’s face, which was lit up by the many lamps that were strung against the buildings, was redder; from the effects of the booze that they had downed, or if it was from some other kind of inebriating effect. 

Max was sure that he was glowing pink from multiple sources of inebriation himself.

Neena was both beautiful and handsome; a dashing, slender figure, Max might venture to admit, in even their indeed dirty clothes and the mess their hair was in. Neena was quick to point out that most of their luck had come from the fact that they had been the person who happened to be chosen to be de-frosted by a mad scientist who in turn happened to not be _completely_ mad. At least, based on the worrying time Max had spent meeting him on the other side of a glass barrier, the man had possessed enough marbles in his head to have successfully revived at least one of the Hope Colonists.

In the time he had grown to know the sole member of the Hope Colonists who wasn’t the consistency of Spacer’s Choice Like-vegetable Canned Soup, Max had come to believe that while everything was likely to have been the work of nothing but unbridled, beautiful chaos, Neena commanded some fate that was its own kind of contained—even dare he say it—inspired madness he had witnessed, and even occasionally had a hand in fulfilling the will of. It was the sort of thing that he had only ever heard of belonging to the makers and breakers of old Earth legend. Not so much a _runaway heiress_ as now as, truer than ever, a gentleman—well, _person-with-a-vulva—_ pirate, the rebel Neena Castillo was someone who simply refused to stand aside and let someone else's designs be made without their loud input. 

They never seemed to fully comprehend how special that was in this grey existence; how before Neena had been sent crashing into the no man's land of the Emerald Vale next to the Saltuna Factory of a town he had been ordered to fulfill the terms and services of his imprisonment in, that everyone in the damn system were living automatons' lives. Some, such as he, had even fallen in love with the concept of embracing the role he wanted to believe he'd been gifted with. That choice, made half a year ago, of leaving his desk in that town, had been an act of open defiance to everything Max had supposedly believed, to follow this enchanted person like he was, well, her Scarecrow to stand against any who would have wanted to steal even a minute piece of what made the Captain of _The Unreliable_ utterly unique. 

Neena themself was a breathtakingly _beautiful_ madness that called everything to it like a gravity well. The kind that had baptized a man of the cloth into a special brand of hedonism, the kind that required its own kind of worship; of the person who had, as an act of devotion and unbridled compassion, had thrown the shackles off which had bound him to a false belief system for forty years. And had not expected that he would be hopelessly lost in trying to make up for it.

Come to think of it, he had so very much to make up for. 

And, somehow, they had no idea how close to the once ironically self given term _Captain Amazing_ applied to them.

Some part of him thought that his fresh desire for Neena tonight was because they were dirty, wild-looking, like they had just gone on an adventure. Deep, soft brown eyes bright, eager to find his gaze for one of the few times he had ever known them for. And they way they looked at him—

Not expecting Neena to be so physical in a public place, Max almost jumped out of his bones as they came up to him, grabbing him by his hip and pressed themself against him. About to say some smart-ass remark in response, Neena stopped him by pressing their mouth against his, drawing his head down to theirs.

Max let out a muffled moan, returning their kiss with a vengeance. For a moment, he forgot—ignored—the rancid, rotten egg-like smell that permeated their air, the raucous noise that wafted from the bar, instead breathing in Neena’s warm smell, the scent of their skin covered by a not entirely unpleasant odor of sweat. To Max, Neena tasted of aggressive, hard love, the kind that one minute would force Max into complete submission and in the next beg to be mastered. 

The kind that someone who had lived for so long in so hard a denial and repression wanted, needed, would have only dreamed of if he had not been rescued nearing a year earlier, supposed impossible dreams scrawled in the middle of the night as notes he made in books he would have undoubtedly obsessively kept. Might have landed him back in the ever welcome embrace of a bottle of liquor or the ever-present danger of Tartarus. 

It was Neena who broke it off, but didn't let go of their vise-like grip on him. Max stared down at them, gasping, his body so alive that it felt like his skin was on _fire_. 

Neena looked, as they deliciously always did, like they were similarly addicted to this; or were, more properly, a slave to it. They pressed their slender and soft body against his, re-awakening the ache that had filled his abdomen every time his Captain had pressed against him at the table. 

They said, “I think we both know what we want to do.” Neena's eyes were a warm patina, the perfect complement to their beautiful dark skin as they gazed into his. There was something definitely unwholesome in those eyes, a look meant only for him. It was a better look for the most part than the one they used to wear, the coldness in their eyes, the disdain they (rightfully) used to have for him. Until _that_ day in this very town, when the look he could remember too well had become replaced with this secretive, strange expression. One that he tried to pretend he didn’t understand, deep in his bones. Wished, for a while, that he didn't. 

Neena tugged at his arm, a smirk that curved well on their bee-stung-shaped, flush lips. “The night’s still young. I know how I want to end it, so could you come with me over to that cabin that I apparently have a permanent lease on?”

Max laughed, and maybe it was the booze or due to the other source of intoxication, but to the Counselor’s ears, his laugh sounded braying and annoying. In a desperate attempt to not sound like a raving lunatic, he focused on trying to sound more cool and collected. “Well, why not?”

It must have worked, or else Neena didn’t care if he sounded like a raving lunatic. Max followed his Captain to the cabin, discovered quickly that, in spite of the lewd way he had once heard Nyoka refer to an ex-lover's privates as a "third leg", he had to reach down in an indelicate, quick motion to re-settle his penis that had become an unneeded hindrance in walking. The ache felt like a tether back to the moment where otherwise Max might have begun to believe that he was in a dream. A bed, for lustful scum like _him_?

Why, Captain Castillo shouldn’t have,

By the time they reached the door of the cabin, Neena turned around and looked up at him, their eyes shining from a mixture of the booze and some emotion that felt shockingly intimate. “I’m ready to put this day behind us. Now, I just want to think about how to end it.”

There were considerations to think of, things that troubled their situations—and not just the two of them. He hadn’t missed the lack of usual familiarity between his Captain and their ship’s doctor, had a feeling that there was some deep issue that existed between the two that would need to be taken care of later. That, and it had definitely gotten to the point where he would have to talk to Neena about their next move; how this last task for Welles was something they would need to do so they could move on with the rest of their lives. Of course, Max hoped that any possible future involved him.

But, really, even he did not possess any desire to care about any of it in that moment, not really. Max was as bad a ship’s Counselor as he had ever been a terrible ship’s Vicar.

Max stood back on his heels, looking back at them. “Captain Castillo, I do believe you are reading my mind.” On a whim, he leaned in close to them, delighting in a way that made the repressed ache in his abdomen feel flush with life, enjoying overmuch the look of shock on Neena’s face as he sank so close to them that he could smell the tang of homebrewed booze on their breath. “You do know, however, the more you keep pulling me into this, the more of a danger you put yourself in.”

Well, maybe not every piece of trouble that plagued them was out of either of their minds. And he saw it, the flicker of something in those eyes, even under the surprise before they opened their mouth to deny it. “I don’t think I’m in as much of a bind as you seem to think I am.”

Would he have had the balls to do it, if he didn’t have the alcohol swimming in his veins, to lean forward, so close until their lips were barely apart, so that all one had to do was lean forward just slightly to kiss? To take something he wanted dearly for what felt like so long?

Instead of kissing them, Max pressed the door button and made sure, even in his own state of inebriation, to grab onto his Captain so that they didn’t go tumbling backward.

Neena made an adorable squawking noise, ended up leaning forward to grab onto him for support as the door disappeared behind them. Curious; Max would have thought that them pouring booze down his throat would have made him more susceptible to drunkenness and therefore more vulnerable. It seemed to him, as Neena grabbed him around his abdomen, that if that had been their intention, it had backfired. Perhaps they weren't aware of his own hobby from back when he was the most bitter member of OSI in existence; throwing back shots of whatever he could get, kept in a flask he kept hidden in his holy vestments or in the supposedly decorative bottles that lined his chapel.

_His chapel._ Max only wished that he had had the chance to use the place he had been imprisoned to give sermons and counseling in perpetuity as a place to devote himself to one last, very private period of not so quiet contemplation. Or, hell, maybe not so private; some would say that for all the work he had done in indoctrinating the poor fools of Edgewater that he might have had a duty to reveal a true focus of not quite holy devotion, with Neena splayed out on the altar.

_Law_ , what was wrong with him?

Well, Max knew the answer to that, understood full well that perversion lived inside of him, as much a quirk as his love of Tossball and reading.

Fantasies that he knew likely had no real place in reality were one thing. Now, where once he would have backed off, to ensure he did not overstep any rungs on the ladder of their relationship while Neena was intoxicated, Max continued, with no small amount of alcohol in his system and the too recent memory of possessive grabbing and borderline laying in his lap.

This, he knew, was just the strangely compellingly awkward mating dance of the most unique creature he had ever laid eyes on.

They looked up at him, and instead of anger or perhaps a joke, Neena bit their lower lip in a wanting, sensual way that short-circuited Max’s brain. Trying to shake off the impression they left on him, he awkwardly pulled them both into the cabin, closing the door behind him and then locking it, not ready to take his arms off of his Captain.

It was Neena’s turn to let out a strange, snorting laugh, one that struck the ex-Vicar as endearing. With their own arms still wrapped around him, even though they no longer needed any support, Neena said, “You’re just full of surprises.”

Unsure of just how long he could keep this banter up with all of the blood flow in his body going to the part of him that was the most excited for the continued close presence of Neena pressed against him, Max said, “So you keep telling me. Perhaps you can shed some light on this. What do _you_ want to do tonight?”

Neena un-wrapped their arms from around him—to his regret—looking up at him in that lust-inducing manner of theirs that seemed to ridiculously suggest that they weren’t aware of the effect they were causing, or didn’t know of the dark and leaden thoughts that swirled in his head.

“Why, Mr. DeSoto, I was just wanting an escort here so I could take a shower in peace.”

Gambling, even with the small chance that they might not stop him, Max shrugged, turning to leave. “I would never dream of infringing on the privacy of my superior—”

They grabbed onto his arm and motioned for him to turn around, which Max did. Then the shorter person strode up and pressed themselves, blatantly, against him, gazing straight into his eyes with a light in their irises that would have shocked the man he was so short a time ago. “I want you to watch me strip.”

Max’s mouth had fallen open and it felt like he had to pick his jaw up from the ground. “Very well.”

Neena had taken one of their hands, starting at the hollow at his neck and chest, and trailed it down. Max could have sworn that the tip of their finger was something he could feel, a pressure, even through the panic-sweat soaked shirt he was wearing, a heat that sank into his skin and refused to leave. They trailed their hands down, down even past his abdomen, his stomach, and found the part of him that had been straining for release. Neena trailed their fingers around the radiating pressure and heat, the straining shape of his filling cock almost making the partially soused Max let out a helpless moan. 

“Do you ever get tired of me?” The question was ridiculous. And at first Max didn’t even believe he heard it. It felt like he was growing deaf to the outside world, his hormones and libido like a loud pressure in his body. Then Neena repeated their question, leaning in close, standing surely up on their toes as they finished the query by pressing a light, scant tease of a kiss on the line of his jaw.

Max threw his head back, an open-mouthed moan reverberating in the prefab rectangle of a room as he helplessly thrust his hips out, pressed his straining, covered penis against the hand of his greatest desire. “Even if I wanted anyone else, no one would be able to stand me long enough anyway.”

It was a bad answer. Even in his state, Max realized as soon as he said it that it was far from the type of answer they wanted to hear, let alone be construed as anything romantic. Hell, it was nothing they _deserved_ to hear, in light of how damn much he needed them.

Neena punished him, grabbing onto his cock in a grip that was ever so slightly tighter than he would have appreciated. Instead of making him recoil in agony, the horny Max just threw his head back and groaned so loud that it was a shock that someone didn’t come to the door to see if someone was being tortured.

He very well might have existed in Edgewater as nothing more than a borderline pick-me-up for this magnificent force of nature, and maybe that ought to have been good enough. Especially given the context of those first few months they had known each other, this transformation in their relationship never failed to ultimately shock Max to consider.

Maybe, someday, many years from now, he would be able to think of this relationship and not feel high thinking about it. But tonight was not that night.

Neena cleaned in close to him, and Max looked at them in half agony and half-mad desire through one cracked open eyelid. “Tell me how much you want me.”

Biting his lower lip, the older man thrust against his Captain’s hand until they had loosened their grip. Stimulating himself on their punishing hand without any shame. “So, _so_ much. I should be so lucky—getting a beautiful thing like you for the rest of my life.” He grinned, a rictus, tight smile. If anything else, he knew, Max was significantly downplaying the reasons for his unbridled devotion. 

That did it. Neena retracted, and it took a lot for Max to not just rip his zipper down and whip himself out. Show them how much of an _affect_ they made on him. He looked up, though, and watched as the previously aggressive Neena looked away, a hand riding up in an unintentional movement meant to cover them.

He almost asked what was wrong, then the Captain looked back at him, the strength and aggressiveness returning to them as if it had never disappeared for a moment. “Sit on the bed.” When Max opened his mouth to question them, Neena walked up to him and, instead of punishing him for not obeying, they leaned up and kissed him deeply until every thought that had been in his mind had gone. Soft, smaller lips melting against his own, teasing him until his mouth had opened, ending as their tongues met, lashing together wildly.

He let them maneuver him back until Max could feel the back of his legs colliding with the edge of the bed. Neena had him sitting on it, was stepping away from him before Max could realize that he was bereft of them. He watched, wanting to beg them, pitifully, for Neena to come back before they took hold of their shirt and tugged it out from the bindings of their pants. “We got all night in here. I’ll make sure of it.”

Max swallowed reflexively, his hands gripping onto the edge of the mattress. He was gone; the small illusion of him being the image of cool and sophisticated, _gone_ as he stared at his Captain.

He was rewarded, however, as Neena did as they were threatening to, pulling their shirt up their body, sliding the edge past the bindings they kept taut around their chest. Max drank in as much of their revealed skin, body, as he could.

Their skin color was like some wild, young wood’s, rich and warm. The kind that he saw in old photographs, in art of old Earth Northern Hemisphere forests. He could also see something that he had known about, a tattoo that Neena never talked about. Probably often forgot it even existed. A small bird, perhaps a swallow, in flight, almost looking as if it were a drawing that had been painted onto their body in a graceful swoop that fit the line of the right side of their hip beautifully. An overtly feminine touch on someone who often either hid that side, or intermingled it with their brash masculinity. 

He wanted to kiss that bird; no, Max wanted to slather his tongue on their sweating skin, taste them until it covered his mouth, as fulfilling as the taste of the liquor he had so recently drunk. He wanted to taste more than that, and the—relatively—innocent desire sparked an insatiable desire for more, more. With Neena, he always just wanted _more_ , until he could drown in them.

Max longed, often, for that mental and emotional connection that he had lost with that strong will. Wished he could know that they wanted him as much as he wanted them, still.

But for now all Max could do was helplessly, eagerly, obey his Captain’s command, squirming from the painful pressure and ache straining against his trousers. Making him feel young, eager to please and receive anything—truly anything—that they wanted to give him.

Neena threw the shirt on the ground until they were standing in only their bindings, boots, and trousers. Maybe he was imagining it—wishing it—but Neena looked a little breathless, even from the slight effort to take the shirt off, lushly flushed. They stared into his eyes as their hands found the latch for the bindings and unwrapped themselves. A present, all for him, almost too much to handle. 

He wanted to crawl towards them, to bury his face in their crotch, a profane twist on his earlier religious manner that he had lived his life in for so long. To look up at the chest they were baring, into those eyes that held him completely in their power.

But, luckily, he had no power, no control over his body. Max sat there, watching as Neena unwrapped themselves, exposing their large handfuls of breasts, tipped in mouth-watering, slightly oversized deep brown nipples. As they tossed the bindings over, landing on top of the shirt they had shed, Max couldn’t help it; he leaned back and rubbed his hand over the offending shape of his overexcited cock through his trousers.

Neena watched him, and if not for the blooming heat he could see in their eyes, he might have thought that they were displeased by what they saw him doing. “Does that hurt?”

_Are you offering to alleviate me?_ Max was too far gone down the rabbit hole to do anything but nod. 

Neena sucked in that bow of a bottom lip of theirs, maneuvering their hips in a soft sway that didn't feel at all like an act, instead felt instinctual. Then their hands dropped, followed by a slight hesitation. Before Max could ask what was wrong, Neena surprised him, walking up to him before they stood with both of their legs trapping either side of his knees.

Max looked up at them, waiting, a huge ball formed in his throat that stopped him from saying anything, even if he had wanted to. They were so close to him now, those nipples that jutted out so alluringly close, almost begging to be sucked on, to have that vaguely metallic taste of their nipples, intermingled with the flavor of sweat, coating his palate, to be worshipped...

Neena grinned down at him, surprising him yet again as they trailed a hand through his hair, mussing it even further than it had already been. “You want to help me, Max?”

He was recessing into a caveman, or perhaps into the teenaged boy who had never experienced what he was surely to be about to partake in. All he was able to manage was one-word answers to his beautiful Captain. “Uh huh.”

Neena dropped a hand to the front waistband of their trousers, the soft shape of their oh so soft and lickable slightly rounded tummy tucked against their hooked thumb. From above him, Neena whispered, “Why don’t you help me out of my boots, then?” The sound, of them unclasping their belt buckle, sounded like it may as well have resonated from the inside of his mind.

Max did it wordlessly, bending down—so close to their belly, their crotch—and hooked his thumbs into the laces of one of their boots, started to try to take it off even though his fingers shook violently. It was the natural order of things, for him to remain at their pleasure, bowing before them. As he worked the laces halfway loose, Neena had taken hold of their pants’ zipper and dragged it down, the sound a wicked hush that stopped Max. He looked up—at the zipper, then at the brown-skinned hand that worked their button fly loose. 

He watched, breathless, as Neena tugged the trousers down, sliding down their hips a few precious centimeters until he could see the edge of their grey underwear as well as a peek of the soft tuft of their dark pubic hair. He near-salivated, barely stopped himself from burying his face in their partially covered crotch.

Neena chuckled softly, then, as Max could only watch, worked a slender hand down, past the edge of their underwear and drawn down pants, past the teasing sight of soft black hair. “Thought you were going to get me out of my boots.” Neena’s voice was a whisper, as if they were telling him dark secrets.

Somehow Max must have recovered some of the blood that had pooled in his lower extremities, enough to say, “I can’t help it, if you’re insisting on posing such a distraction.”

Neena reached over with their unencumbered hand, gently grabbed onto his hair, the feeling bringing Max out of the reverie he had succumbed to. “You do something nice for me…”

Max forced his eyes away from the far too appealing sight of the shape of Neena’s other wrist; the one submerged behind the waistband of their underwear, touching what he thirsted to taste, looking down at the boot he had been working on as he willed his fingers to work the laces loose. As he threw the edges of the laces free, Max didn’t anticipate the sudden movement as Neena grabbed onto the back of his head with one hand, with the other—the other kind surely flavored with their lush, covered crotch—slipped past his pursed lips.

Max sucked on their fingers without a thought, spreading the heavy tang of sweat and sex on his tongue. The taste of Neena, the flavor of their almost effortless arousal for him. He looked up at his Captain as he thoughtlessly sucked on their fingers, gazing up into their eyes. Saw the sinful smile spread across their face. He could swear, what little he sampled, that they tasted also of moonshine. Perhaps, if he tasted more, he would be able to discern the flavor profile of a quick rescue, an escape from a mantiqueen...

“Like that, do you?” When Max nodded, their mouth fell open from a smile, softly panting. “Do the other one.” They drew their fingers out of Max’s mouth, the seal his lips had made causing a _pop_ as they withdrew. 

He looked down, trying to concentrate enough to get the damn laces on the other boot loose. He felt like he was running a fever, Max’s mind swimming in a mixture of the residual effects of the alcohol he had drunk as well as his own ravenous libido. When he, somehow, managed to get the laces loose on the other boot, Neena ran their still wet hand against his stubbled cheek, then took hold of his chin, drawing his gaze up until Max’s eyes were stuck on theirs.

By the _Law_ , Neena’s lips looked like a succulent flower petal when closed, and parted those lips seemed to beckon to him like he was some pollen-bearing creature, pulled by some overwhelming biological compulsion to fill, to stuff—

“You look good like that,” they murmured, eyes half-lidded. “like you’re on your knees.”

Unerringly, Max remembered his earlier desire, to crawl to them on his knees. Accept his succor and solace at Neena’s mercy.

They reached down again, trailing their still moist fingers against his hair-roughened chin. “Do you like my body?”

He answered without hesitation. “Yes. So much.”

Neena seemed to gaze down his body, past his upraised face with a pleased grin growing on their mouth. “I can see that.” Well, it would have been very _hard_ for them to not see it. If it wasn’t written on his face, then it was straining against his trousers. “You’ve done a good job so far.” 

He almost whimpered in dismay as Neena drew back, walking a few feet backward. Watched, as Neena kicked their boots off, every movement they made causing their breasts and the wicked curves, the sweet, thick parts, jiggle and move lewdly, dragging him into a state of hypnosis that once he had sneered at. _How can the sight of nude flesh possibly push a man to lose his mind?_

As it had turned out, when you never saw anything worthy of mental stimulation, there was little danger of stimulation in the first place. And when you found something worthy of it you could easily drown yourself in it.

As Neena slipped their trousers and underwear down past their knees, they looked up at him. “Take your pants off.” At first Max wasn’t sure he heard them right. Then Neena seemed to straighten, their voice rising as they spoke with an authoritarian sharpness. “I said, _take your pants off_.”

Max blinked as if a spell had been broken, He reached down and, wincing, un-did the button and then unzipped himself, groaning as he pulled his very full penis up, arching it above the wedging, tight prison of his trousers, still nevertheless painfully trapped in his briefs. He looked up, realized that he had missed Neena slipping the trousers and underwear past their knees.

Max stared at Neena’s crotch, at the soft lips of their lightly haired vulva. Taking in the shiny quality of their beautiful skin, the ruffle-like texture and shape of their inner lips as they flared out, and the down-like softness of the fresh growth of hair above their slippery, wet lips, a peek of their aroused clit.

_Neena’s excited. Wet for me._

And Max was very eager for them also. He felt emboldened by them, a maddened grin stretching across his lips as he sat back on the bed, pushing his trousers down his knees, gripping his cock as it felt like it was pulsing to the beat of his heart. 

Neena dropped their hand to their crotch, their fingers lazily caressing their smooth-looking outer lips. “I love the taste of that.”

Max felt the grin somehow manage to widen on his mouth. “I believe I like the taste of you even better.” His mouth was almost watering for not just their pussy, but he had a hunger also for a lick of their ass. One long, slow lick, like he was getting to the center of one of the Rizzo ChocoPops he used to get on trips into the small farming town as a boy.

How his tastes had _changed._

Neena ran their fingers against their lips, slipping inside, teasing an agonized Max. “Oh, now, this isn’t a competition. And what have I _done_ to you, you sweet, innocent man?”

Max felt emboldened, freed by the feral joy of his Captain. “You’re insane if you think I wasn’t plagued by impure thoughts, drives, all the time.” The man gripped himself through the fabric prison of his underwear.

Neena stopped, and Max looked up at their face. Saw how he had managed to shock them.

That surprised him. Did Neena think he was made of stone, didn’t have sexual appetites before they had “deflowered” their aging Vicar?

Licking their lips, Neena asked, “Did you… ever…”

Max didn’t understand what they meant at first, then he watched as Neena softly stimulated themselves, slipping their fingers against their clit, their wet vulva. 

He looked up at their eyes, flicking a heroic smile, given what he was feeling, what he was admitting to. “What do you think I spent my ample time in the bathroom doing?” _Used to tell myself I was purging myself of the impurities that cast a shadow over my mind and soul. Over and over, too many times to properly count._

Neena let out a shocked breath. “You’re saying… you…”

Max tilted his head to the side, couldn’t resist the very rare moment of getting a leg up on Neena. “Do you think a person who has a libido is capable of not needing to masturbate?” He dared an eyebrow cock at them. It was impossible for Max to not backslide into an old personality defect of his, courtesy a lifetime of bitter disappointment, as sarcasm managed to find it's way in his voice, even during a moment like this.

They barely seemed to take a breath before they asked, _ordered_ , “How often?”

Max stilled. This was becoming more humiliating than he thought it was going to be. Still, completely under their spell, he admitted, “Goodness. Coming off of Edgewater, it felt like my body was coming alive. Might have had something to do with not having to smell Saltuna all the time, and the rumble of the ship…”

As if reading his mind, Neena pressed him further. “Ever think about me?”

He was surprised; for a time he had wondered if Neena would ever be bold enough with him to admit that they knew that his ship’s Captain was the focus of all of his impure thoughts. Max bit his lower lip, unable to stop himself from stroking his hand down the aching shape in his underwear. “You _are_ the first person I’ve met that I’ve found attractive.” He snorted. "Although, take that compliment as you will, given the options available to me." Again, Max realized too late that in trying desperately to save face he had said something stupid as soon as the words had left his mouth.

Neena, in a flat, annoyed voice, said, “Well, when you put it like _that—”_

Hurried, Max added, “I thought about you all the time, you were all I thought about!” He was barely aware of how his voice had risen, a note of unflattering panic threatening to take control of his voice. 

Neena seemed to grow still. Then, softly, so softly that he could barely make it out, Neena said, “Then do it. Do it for me.”

Max gazed at them, confused, then Neena repeated themselves, raising their voice slightly. 

Swallowing the hard lump in his throat, Max gripped his penis and came close to whimpering. “A-alright.” 

Didn’t need to tell him twice. He could have wept from relief, as Max pulled his briefs down, did gasp as he thrust his penis up, the cold, conditioned air of the room hitting his sensitive skin so that he had to wrap a hand around himself, not just because of his aching need.

Neena didn’t look away from him, his fist wrapped around the base of his cock. “Do it for me.” Max gasped, looking at his Captain as if he thought that he had just misheard them. The look on their face sobered him. Aroused him.

He did not know how erotic they could possibly find it; an older man, in the indelicate nomenclature of the Halcyon System, jacking himself, and Neena looked at him, impassive if not for the overbright glint in their eyes. Or how they rubbed themselves, as if in answer, a lazy, slow circle around their clit with their fore and middle fingers.

At first he had been stimulating himself for show, but with Neena’s eyes bathing him in growing heat, in expectation, Max started to thrust his curled hand down the length of his penis, his breathing speeding up. It was a shock when Neena stopped him.

“Okay. Don’t waste your load on that.”

Max loved the profanity, the dirty way they made him feel. Helpless under their spell one moment, in complete control over them the next. Everything he ever fantasized about in his lonely, forbidden stolen moments in his bed in the early mornings, in the showers he took before he retired for the night, months ago. Max moaned, but eagerly assented, leaning further back on the bed and he pulled his hand away. He wanted to beg to give himself relief, felt like he was going to burst without it. Or beg for them to help him with some visual and audible stimulation. 

Neena walked away, to his dismay. They kicked their trousers off as they did, the sound of their pants hitting the ground a whisper of fabric and the slight clink of the metal of their belt onto the cold, hard ground. As he watched them go around the bend, Max heard them turn the shower on. After a moment of hesitation, still under the spell of their authoritative demands, Max stood up, shucking off his pants. 

He couldn’t handle holding back, denying himself. He ached to see Neena beneath the wet sheen of water on their body. He needed release, relief. Not a _fucking_ shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late addendum: just realized I was in such a hurry (barely fed myself before my shift started) that I forgot to name drop the titles and bands of the music featured in this!
> 
> "Wait so Long" is by Trampled by Turtles  
> "Black Irish" is by The Devil Makes Three, as is "Help Yourself".
> 
> First time dropping bluegrass, yay.
> 
> Holy crap I took WAY more time than I expected to on revision of this, crap, crap--
> 
> Alright, insert usual self defeating babbling here, lame begging for leaving a kudos and comments if you haven't already, alright, alright!
> 
> Real quick, wanted to say thank you to PandarenGurl and BadModem, who left encouraging comments as far back as the teaser chapter--you guys ROCK! Also, hi Dany, hi BonyMaloney, you guys make me feel at home in this fandom and all of you who follow have a habit of making me feel like I have actual meat friends.
> 
> Also, I learned this morning that TurianTaylor did as they claimed they would and dedicated a Vicar Max piece to this! *gasp* I spent all day dicking on discord and working on this so I didn't get to it, I am VERY sorry, please check them out, that was really nice, which I needed after spending a week writing a holy shit amount of words on my original piece.
> 
> Hang on, I gotta run off like my hair's on fire--


	30. 29: Private Confession & Atonement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a little imagination, one can re-corrupt the previously incorruptible.

Neena walked into the flood of warm-ish, but thankfully  _ sulfur-less _ shower water. It might have sobered them a little, but did little to soothe the ache. 

That fire that radiated out of their core. 

It had been a long time since Neena had known that it was Max that made them burn from the inside, and even being in his presence tonight had been borderline pornographic. As much of the ex-Vicar as they knew, intimately, it felt like every other thought Neena had had was a rabbit hole that led to fantasies of Max DeSoto, as if he had been doing something explicit to them, just by sitting next to them. Hearing Max's lusty laughter and the subtle shiver in his very solid torso when Neena touched him, the frequent way he glanced at them while they were in public, and even worse was how he seemed to always look at their face, a habit of those surreptitious and secret glances that he did before he would look away, get caught doing that lovesick puppy thing he seemed to think would turn them off. Probably should have, if things between them made any sense.

With another person, still, Neena loved playing emotionally removed. It was a relieving contrast right now against the hot, unquenched desire he provoked in them.

And they had the not quite sneaking suspicion that Max liked these kinds of games. The other thing that Neena was less than enthused to think about was how much they wanted nothing more at any time other than to love the body and mind of the man who always seemed to be there for them.

The booze, after all, had been Neena trying to get him as gone as they were. Almost as soon as the fear of what would happen if they kept wanting him this badly had begun to burn free in them, Neena had felt a ravenous hunger, a need to feel fully alive. 

As they ran the soap over the washcloth, Neena could feel his presence in front of the shower. The memory of him, masturbating for them, boldly staring at all of them as he arched and moaned, filled their head until it was all they could think of.

The ex-Vicar’s dick was beautiful, just a few degrees cooler in tone than the sun-kissed tone on his upper body, thick, sticking straight out beneath a soft, curling patch of brown hair. It looked like a true object of lust-inducing beauty in and of itself, doubly so when it was encased in Max’s fist, was the reason for the agonized, beautiful expression on his face.

That image had not abandoned Neena’s mind for long as they had left him. And they were starting to feel impatient. What was he waiting for? Did he want to hear them welcome, or perhaps, demand he come in here with them?

Neena started to run the rag over their arm when they felt him enter the shower, pressing against them. They willingly leaned back against him, shivering. He formed a barrier made of a broad-shouldered, daddy body.

“We’ve never showered together.” Max had dropped his head, hovering dangerously close to their neckline. They both knew what he was threatening to do, and perhaps he knew also what it would do to them if he did. Instead, in a soft, husked whisper, he asked, “Planning to change that?”

Neena’s breath hitched in their throat, stopping any words that might have come out. Why was it impossible to guess which side of Max they would see at any given time; the matter-of-fact side, the hot, passionate remnant of his old self, or the new, off-setting side, the kind that seemed to suggest that he was simply here, in the moment?

_ Here for them.  _

They didn’t get a chance to answer. When their breath finally escaped it was in a long, high pitched hiss as Max pressed his lips close to their collarbone and sucked. As hard as he suctioned, it was going to leave a mark. Neena’s voice rose into a shriek, caught between wanting to press his head down closer and pushing him away. Finally, though, Max released, moving his head away as he thrust his body against their back. 

He was all big, all warm. Just big enough to suggest—subtly suggest—that he was in overt, physical control in a pure and primeval way.

Max’s voice had that strange heaviness in it as he spoke. “How long should we spend in here?”

Neena’s first instinct was to tell him that they had all night if they wanted, but they remembered the absolutely filthy fantasy Neena had not been able to get out of their mind every moment they blatantly pressed against their ship’s Counselor in the bar.

Indeed, it did not take long before Neena caught themselves grinding back against the amazingly hard body behind them. It was too easy in this situation; the water that had coated their back and his chest made it feel like he was a ride in a waterpark. Neena shook their head, finding it a struggle to keep from just giving too easily into getting fucked or fucking against a shower wall. No; Neena didn’t want to waste this night on something they could do with him again over and over again in the future.

That was a strange, slightly disconcerting thought to have. For just how much longer DID they want this relationship to go for? It was already strange that Neena was still caught up with him and hadn’t—yet—wanted to move on from him.

Before they could begin struggle to bring that thought out in the open, Max was reaching around, sliding his arm against their belly. Dangerously close to the part of them that ached for him to fill them. “Well? How long ought we be in here, cleaning ourselves?” Proof of how perverted he had become; he thrust his dick until it slid, pressed insistently against their back.  _ Knock, knock, I’m home honey. _

“Let’s get clean and dry, then we can play.”  _ Not exactly  _ clean,  _ then.  _

Neena licked their lips, drew the washcloth up to swab at their chest, up to their neck where Max had left a bruising welt. Shit, they had always loved the bruise left over from a lovebite or a hard, aggressive bit of sucking on their neck, more than any other gift, especially when it came from this man. Diamonds, indeed, were not and had never been their best friend.

At that moment they were as close, surely, to needing to come as the man behind them was. But they knew also that the best was yet to come.

Neena swabbed their body with the ample suds, shivering as they tried to prepare themselves for anything he might try. Wondered just how loud they would cry out if he were to take control, press them against the shower wall. After all, it didn’t matter how they got to it, Neena knew that all roads with Max lead to great sex. 

Neena finished washing themselves before they handed a fresh washcloth to the man behind them over their shoulder, realizing that the man who had been massaging and rubbing up against them had not actually managed to clean himself. As his hand connected with theirs, Neena turned, looked slyly at him. “Don’t have a problem with having to wait, do you?”

Max stared, deep into their eyes, before he took the rag, his mouth transforming with an unquirk of his lips. “And why should I? We have all the time in Halcyon, don’t we?”

Neena couldn’t help it, they were only human. They dragged their ass against his crotch, reveling in the way his dick responded. “Honestly, once upon a time, you struck me as impatient when I met you. And a little… stuck up.”

Max’s smirk broke into a large grin. He was lathering the washcloth up, now he started to drag it over the alluring shape of his ever so softly furred pecs and chest. “Well, I’m  _ still _ impatient. Maybe I was a little… close minded. How many men do you know who wait until they’re past the big five oh before they realize how much they appreciate copulation when it’s with their dearest friend?”

_ Copulation _ . Why did that biological, austere term, coming from  _ his _ mouth, sound dirtier than any time someone had ever told them that they loved to fuck? 

Neena watched him over their shoulder as Max, with aching slowness, rubbed the suds-encased cloth across his body. Neena maneuvered, turning around as Max’s momentarily diverted focus allowed them to give into the urge to drag their hand over the freshly washed skin. He let them stroke him, like Neena was in a truly dirty petting zoo, the nonexistent kind where someone could get their satiation from rubbing the body of their local Counselor. They ended it, without realizing what they were doing until it was in their pinching fingertips, by grasping the pouting tip of one of his warm-pink, hardened nipples.

“I think you’re becoming distracted.” Max’s soft, slightly sarcastic voice snapped Neena into the realization that they had been in a trance, rubbing the suds off of his freshly cleaned skin—and testing the texture of one of his nipples—for far longer than they had meant to, if, indeed, they had  _ meant _ to do anything. Instead of snapping at him that he was  _ fucking distracting,  _ Neena smiled, turning all the way around to take in the wet Maximillion DeSoto in all of his glory. And, what a  _ glorious _ sight he made, for so blighted a place as the Halcyon System.

With naturally tan skin, amuscled, broad chest… and such a darkly sardonic, quick wit to go with his body. Anyone would be lucky to have someone like him. And that was before you got caught by the sight of his fuck-off, slender hips and nicely shaped— 

Where did that thought come from, again? It was fun to play with Max, and sure, it had never felt this natural to be with someone, but Neena couldn’t actually see themselves with one person exclusively, right? Right?

Max had cleared his throat, snapping Neena out of their crisis. Almost dreading looking up, Neena saw how the hungry, dark look in his eyes was replaced, a smirk fitting on one side of his lips. This man was always the most dangerous when he was in control. 

“If you insist on continuing to look at me like that, you cannot hold me responsible, in my current state, for what I might say. Or do.”

Neena trailed their finger back over that puckering nipple, taking a strange relief in how he shivered in response. They needed control. Neena slipped their hand up, cupped his chin. “I got a lot of things I wanna do tonight. The part where I want you to talk is gonna come later.”

That smashable smirk didn’t leave his mouth, but he held his hands up as if in defeat as Neena slipped out of the shower.

There was only one towel in the room—of course, because who in the  _ hell _ would actually bring someone they planned to have sex with and happened to be classy enough to constitute a shower being involved, here on Monarch?—so they shared it. Neena ungraciously took the first go with it, glancing back at him as Max turned the shower off, could feel his eyes on them with some of that hot hunger in his eyes lit with humor as he stood there, an arm drawn down to his right thigh, waiting.

He looked beautiful, adorned with water droplets and his hair pressed tight against his skull. Vulnerable, even. 

So Neena took a bit longer than they normally would have, leisurely swabbing themselves with the towel. Watching as he rolled his eyes, still managing a warm smile as he watched Neena rub their hair down, arms raised up, more as a chance to let him get an ample look at their also ample chest, knowing that their thick ass hair would still be near dripping wet over an hour from now. 

As Neena offered him the damp towel Max shook his head, chuckling softly as he applied it to himself, only to look up at Neena as they backed away, his eyes stuck to their bared body. He sure had a way of making them feel like an image of beauty that Neena didn’t believe they were. It was strange, addicting.

Neena stepped back, taking him in as well as the Counselor buffed his wet body in a vain attempt to get the fibers of the already used towel to wick the water off of his skin. They admired the aspects of him that made Max so human, such as his overlarge ears, all those mars and welting scars on his shoulders, the huggable, slight roundness to his belly; likely caused by the recent uptick in decent food the whole crew had been eating and the lack of obsessive nights he would have spent in  _ quiet contemplation _ and lack of, sadly, rare tossball games. Looking at him was an attempt of their own to ignore the questions that the way he looked at Neena made them feel. 

When he pulled the towel away, the hunger in Max’s eyes winning over the humor, Neena said what they had been afraid to tell him as much as they had been eager to. “I have something for you. I—put it in the closet.” When he looked at them questioningly, Neena looked away, feigning clearing their throat.

The look in his eyes at first said it all.  _ What’s left, after you’ve already sodomized my ass?  _ Nevertheless, they watched as the man went over and peered into the closet. He missed it at first, and before Neena could direct him to look in the right place they saw him go still. They could hear the sharp intake of his breath. Thought, for sure, that he would say no.

To be fair, Neena didn’t know how they imagined that he  _ would _ be okay with this. And they understood why. But maybe this was a warning to him, buried beneath all of the kink. If he kept trying to pull them into something deeper than a series of one night stands, then he had to be aware of how deep the rabbit hole of Neena’s depravity and fetishization went.

Max came away from the closet, holding his old, but freshly laundered, vestments up by its clothes hanger. 

Neena felt some of the tension that had filled them drain out at the sight of his face. He didn’t look angry, or upset. Instead, he looked like he was barely stifling the need to smirk at them, his lips quivering with repressed disbelief. Maybe even a laugh.

Even if it was at their expense, it was a relief to Neena.

Finally after ducking his head, letting the smile that had been threatening to fill his face free, Max looked back up at them and tilted the outfit on its hanger. “You must be joking.”

Neena looked at him, then back at the vestments. There had been a time when they would have loved to have seen him in anything but that blue-purple get-up. But at that moment, the thought of seeing him in this context in those clothes drove them wild.

“What if I wasn’t?”

“When did you even  _ get _ this?”

Surprised by the question—and thoroughly intoxicated by booze and hot desire—they had to struggle to come up with their answer. “Remember when I went off to take a leak and I wanted to do it on the ship?”

His eyebrows creased but that smirk never left his lips. “Yes, but, the last time I saw these they did not smell like clean cotton. You’ve gone out of your way, for once, to plan. And it was to put  _ this— _ in here?”

A little defensive—who was  _ he _ to question their ability to plan ahead—Neena said, “Don’t get too sentimental over this, DeSoto.”

He looked startled by that declaration. Still expecting him to put up an argument, to say that this was over the line, Max shrugged and pulled the—what had that article of clothing been called, the kind that her grandparents' Catholic priests had worn; a  _ cassock _ ?—loose, and started to pull it on.

Neena was spellbound, watching him put his once sacramental clothes on. Was it normal to be this turned on, watching someone getting dressed?

It was erotic, watching as Max smoothly, even in his inebriated state, pulled his cassock and then slipped his trousers—sans his briefs—on, with an ease that was only gained from practice. This was, after all, the only thing he had worn, besides prison garments, for most of his life. It was probably, however, the first time he had ever worn those pants without underwear. Not that Neena hadn’t spent far too much mental real estate imagining otherwise.

Something in Neena wanted to give a different meaning to these vestments. Not erase old memories of them, but perhaps give them a new—very different—life, some purpose.

With everything correctly buttoned up, Max, perhaps out of old habit indeed, stood up perfectly straight, his hands folded over his abdomen. If not for the heat in his eyes when he turned to look at them, Neena might have been trapped in the image, of an old Max, in this room with them. Only now there was a very different connotation to him.

He cleared his throat, a brief moment betraying his discomfort, making them feel a bit guilty for this. “So, what do we do now?”

Neena flicked their tongue out, lapping at their suddenly very dry bottom lip. “I thought—I never gave you a chance before, to try to sell your religion to me.” Re-thinking that term, Neena corrected themselves. “Never gave you a chance to give me, any of us, a sermon.” After a pause, Neena added, “Father Max.”

A blush crept up one side of his face, a bloom of vibrant red. He was struggling. Good; it was a relief to see him have to fight for control, for direction.

“That… is not the right title… Well, all due respect…” That was a funny term, one Neena might have laughed at, if not for how overwhelmingly turned on as they were at that moment. “I don’t know what to do with this scenario. I mean, it will be a little… facetious, will it not?”

_ Will it not.  _ That was another interesting turn of phrase. The type of phrasing that Max, nowadays at least, did not say anymore. It was almost as though the act of putting the cassock on had started to influence him. 

Rapidly Max was the wet dream of someone who loved role playing with a naughty man of the cloth come to life.

Someone, an influence on a very young Neena Castillo—who, at the time, had still been trying to run away from the name Esperanza Urraca—told them that everything a person put out to the world, what they chose to wear, was drag. In his vestments, it was as if a switch had been turned on in Max, as easily as whatever Neena chose to wear was for them.

Oddly, it felt like she was confronted by the man that Neena had fought with for the first portion of the time she had ever known this man.

Neena sat cross legged on the bedspread atop their small bed. When they looked up they confirmed that the image, of a drunk and at least previously very horny man in a blue-purple cassock, was still there to see. 

Now, what were they supposed to do with him?

They were thoughtlessly running their hand over the wrinkles in the blanket they sat on top of, giving their too eager fingers something to do. Finally, with Max standing next to the closet, stiff as a statue, Neena rolled their eyes and snapped, something they wouldn’t have done sober. “Go ahead. Talk. Give me that speech I never let you give me.”

Finally it was as if he came to life, had sobered. Max scoffed, raising a hand up in a once-familiar gesture that seemed to go with the vestments, fingers squeezing the bridge of his heavy nose. “Neena. I am no longer associated with the OSI, its teachings, its philosophy. I am… I’m frankly—at an impasse, trying to understand  _ why _ you want me to wear  _ this _ —”

Neena crossed and re-crossed their legs as he spoke, then impatiently heckled him, “You look fucking hot in it! Keep talking!”

Max looked like he was dangerously close to freezing up, his eyes darted around the room. He seemed uncomfortable, the sight of all of that uncertainty in his eyes causing the veil of horny excitement to lift in Neena, leaving them feeling guilty again. This was a bad idea they had talked themselves into. No one liked having to wear their past mistakes, literally, and be reminded of them, when they just wanted to have sex. 

Neena was about to tell him to take the damn thing off when something magical happened.

Max stood up even straighter and cleared his throat, getting their full attention. He lifted his chin slightly, the start of a sneer creeping along one edge of his lips. If not for his still wet muss of hair, he would have been the spitting image of Vicar Maximillion, returned from where Neena had had no small part of throwing the dirt on top of his unwanted old self. 

And damn, if this wasn’t the only situation where Neena relished the thought of his temporary return.

Completing the transformation—albeit with some tell-tale wavering focus in his stare—Max clapped his hands together in a patronizing manner and said, in that old, hurried patter of his, “A term no one in their right  _ fucking _ mind has ever said aloud before now: “That Vicar looks hot”. So now I have to know, Disciple Castillo: tell me, what part, exactly, of my holy vestments is the most  _ particularly _ appealing to you?” The cynicism was fairly dripping off of every word he said and his eyes seemed to have darkened.

In their right mind, Neena would have informed him that there was no fucking way in hell that no one before them had fantasized about him, whether or not they believed it to be true. But at the moment, the immediate impression he had on them was that of every authority figure in their life who had ever come down on them about anything.

Neena felt their voice squeak in the back of their throat. 

It was too easy to remember how they used to get along, what felt like a lifetime ago. This was like Vicar Max turned up to  _ eleven _ . He had never, in reality, talked to them this way—with haughty, bordering-on-enraged, condescension—and with good reason. Neena would have decked him in the head if he tried to pull this attitude with them. 

With his vestments on, as had once seemingly been the point of them, Neena could not see the humanizing, beautiful aspects of his body that they had devoured only moments before.

Fixing a desperate, wide-eyed look on their face that they hoped could penetrate through all of their rampant horniness, the nude Neena beseeched their fully clothed Vicar, “I need your help, didn’t mean to offend you. I don’t—” Selling it as hard as they could, they held their hands tightly together and begged, “ _ please  _ don’t punish me for this, I am sorry, I am  _ so _ very sorry.” If only they could keep the grin they felt itching at the edge of their mouth from threatening to creep onto their lips.

Vicar Max didn’t seem that impressed with their begging—and they didn’t blame him, either. Neena harbored no impression that they came off at all with an ounce of sincerity. It was shocking, however, how quickly he transformed. As if role playing were second nature to him already.

At first staring them down for a solid few seconds that might as well have been disapproval in concentrated form, Max said, “I don’t think you’re in any form of a penitence I’ve ever heard of before.” His voice had dropped, low, as did his eyelids. “You want to prove your…” a momentary slip up, no doubt caused by the booze Neena had applied him with, but it was quickly moved past, ignored by both. “devotion to me, then you’re best suited, not on a bed.”

Neena stared at him, disbelieving what they were hearing. This had been a fucking fantasy of theirs of him for so long that they thought they had passed out, was dreaming this. Of course, Max didn’t know what was going on in their head without the aid of the strange drugs that had pulled them together irreparably. And, perhaps in this persona, he didn’t give a shit. 

His face creased, transforming into a mask of tight, withheld rage as he spoke with a slight snarl in his voice. “Did you fucking grow deaf? Off the bed, Castillo.”

Neena’s body seemed to move without any order from their mind. They slipped onto the floor, began to maneuver, cross-legged with the bed pressing against their shoulders. Nowhere to run to. Only with their personal savior in front of them.

Max took a step closer and everything lit up in Neena, fight or flight and hot desire burning them as they flinched slightly before he said a word. “Not like that.  _ You _ ; get on your _ knees _ .” He enunciated each word with strict precision. 

Neena moved, sitting up on their knees. Without even meaning to, they sat like a penitent sinner, awaiting the judgement of their priest. 

And their godhead gazed down at them. Not pleased, but some of his disdain and anger had cooled. How far was he going to take this, and was he going to break before he did it?

Neena had never trained or really had much patience for people new to role playing, so, anxiously in the back of their mind, they wondered if he could do this on pure instinct. And, they trembled to imagine, if any of this was based on no small amount of fantasies all his own.

At this eye level, Neena, with growing anticipation, believed they knew where this was going to go. Their eyes caught onto the place on Max’s body where they envisioned their wonderful punishment would be derived from. 

Then Max spoke up, his voice sharp like a stick on their back. “Did I tell you to look at me like that?” Neena shot their gaze back up to his cold, green eyes, at the hard edifice that his face had become. “I am not some toy for you to use and abuse at will.”

That struck a strange chord in Neena, almost pulled them out of the fantasy they were both deep inside of. Was this part of the role, or was it some aspect of himself that, intentionally or unintentionally, he was doing more than revealing—he was indeed using, like a weapon?

Neena’s eyes undoubtedly revealed their hesitation. But instead of sinking into a rage or losing confidence, like a person who was bad at playing a role would have, Max straightened up, standing as stiff and unmovable as a wall. When he spoke, the earlier rise in his voice had gone, replaced with a whiplash of calm. “What is the matter? If you do not wish to sit, prostrate before me, then you are free to go whenever you please.”

How had he never done this before? Most people that Neena had role played with, even the more supposedly experienced players, had a habit of being too forceful, of not truly giving into their role while maintaining concern, relying on force or over-exaggeration to try to pull their partner into their disintegrating fantasy. No; Max was as cool and in control as if this were not a role, but was some peek into another dimension where this had been the way their relationship had gone. 

It occurred to them too late; of course Max was good at playing a role. He had been playing one his entire life, after all. Perhaps if Max had gained some amount of power in his religious organization, and instead of alleviating his stress and unhappiness with a drug trip, he might have instead channelled it into taking select members of his congregation aside for private penance. 

And here Neena was, to play the role of the lucky follower who was to serve as the subject of Vicar Max’s intensive counseling.

That lit a fire inside of Neena that was almost too strong to bear. 

They struggled to keep up their side of the role playing, shifting uncomfortably as their pussy ached for their holy man. Still, they found the ability to speak, their painful desire radiating in their words, adding unintentional creedence to a sense of festering desperation. “No, no—I don’t want to leave, Vicar. I want to be here. I want you to help me. Cure me.”

Again, something clicked into place, changed for Max. He subtly tilted his head to the side, read his devout follower like he read one of his books. Even the sight of his unruly hair had ceased to matter in how it might have broken the immersion of Max in this role. “Funny; I don’t believe there was an ounce of humility in that request of yours. How am I to believe that you are here to atone and to receive my help—”

Neena cut him off, starting to feel the role settling onto their skin, feel natural as they bleated out, “Please,  _ please _ , I want—”

But Vicar Max was not about to be cut off, let alone by a lost member of his flock. “Without showing  _ any _ sign of humility?” Max’s hands dropped to either side of his hips and he gazed down at the Captain of his ship with a disdain so real that it seemed to almost glow in his eyes. “Show me, prove to me that you are deserving of my guidance.”

Neena pressed their hands together, clenching their fingers in a tight prayer. “I can—I want to change. I want to be saved.”

Something; some brief show of emotion, something darker, seemed to show on his face, then it disappeared behind a fresh mask of austere warmth. “And how can I possibly save  _ you _ ?” He shifted, a small show that he wasn’t as perfectly at balance as he might have looked before. “You’re as penitent and tame as an Emerald Vale raider.”

This was the man that, not too long ago, they had compelled to jack off for their pleasure. 

Neena had started to pant, they fought to cover it up, clenching their mouth closed. “Please. I’ll give you—give you anything you want.”

Expecting him to start to waver, here—what kind of a supposedly once decent person sank so quickly into this role, let alone as if it were no role at all?—Neena let out a choked cry when Max instead spoke in a quick, cold demand. “I want you to promise yourself to me. Honor an agreement, where as long as I wear these holy vestments that you will seek redemption from me and not at the feet of any other person of my station.” When Neena only stared at him, instead of barking at them, his face seemed to smooth out as a softness that was eerily sincere entered his voice. “Together we can find a new path to a reawakening, privately.”

Almost as a way to clear out the impression that he was not being—as he had called it earlier— _fully_ _facetious_ , Neena played along, staring him deep into his eyes. “You would want to do such a thing with me?”

Max’s mouth curved into a smile that was not fully wholesome, on lips whose voluptuousness had never helped in accentuating the impression of him as a man in a respectable, chaste position. “Oh, most certainly. I would find it a singularly  _ joyful _ experience, to share a path of enlightenment alongside you.”

Neena could only squirm, helpless, prostrate before him, their bare nipples so hard they hurt, ached for his mouth, his touch, everywhere on their body where his voice was teasing, enflaming. “I would be… honored to receive my penance from you.” Honest words, concealing only the fact that it was a very different kind of penance that they longed for.

Max’s eyes could not fully hide his inebriation, but it didn’t cut the sharp edge off of him, his natural ability for this role. A dark side to an old persona, one that he had worn for so long that he had believed he embodied it. “Penance shall come soon. But first, an offering for me. I grow weary from the weight of the responsibility I have for all who seek my guidance.” He rose a hand up, slid it down the side of his beautiful neck that peeked out above his high collar.

“How can I alleviate your burden?” They didn’t even realize that they had begun to speak like him. Or more specifically, like a devout follower would entreat the man they viewed as their guiding light, would.

Expecting an explicit, dirty request, and ready, eager, to fulfill any of it, Neena was shocked when he softly requested, “I have never tasted the lips of another, not in all of my years of service to the Great Engineer. Now I want to do it, experience one thing that the Engineer has never denied me, but I always denied myself.”

Of course Neena had known that Max had been a virgin when they had met him. But could that have been true; that, more even than a virgin, he had never even shared a  _ kiss _ with another person? About to ask him, Neena thought they saw the truth in his face. 

Max had thrown away his youth, fighting any chance at intimacy he might have had because he wanted,  _ needed  _ to see himself as a shepherd to all, refused to be deterred by anything as base as sins of the flesh. Even with something as relatively innocent as a  _ kiss _ . 

Their lips felt like they itched with that knowledge. They had been the first to kiss him, ever, and it had been minutes before they had sunk a dildo into his ass.

Trembling, Neena, boldly given the role they were playing, sat further up on their knees, their eyes entreating the beautiful, golden man who so sweetly offered a place at his feet. “Yes, I would be honored to kiss you.”

He walked to them, strode until he was standing in front of them, his crotch at Neena’s face. The question, of if he would take ‘kiss” to mean a different context soon enough was answered as he reached down, touching them for the first time since they had begun to play this game. He slipped his calloused fingers underneath their chin, rose their face so that he could meet their lips as he crouched down.

His fingers drew a flinch and a hiss from Neena, their skin oversensitized. 

The kiss at first was near chaste, sweet. It felt less like the act of a character, a man abusing his role as spiritual leader, and more like someone who had never experienced the sweet intimacy of even a soft kiss. It made Neena ache even before he breached past their lips, sliding an almost hesitant, questing tongue into their mouth. Wished this had been the true context of their first kiss, them alone in his church, hidden behind the barrier of his book case...

He tasted of moonshine and the simple meal they had eaten earlier, but he also tasted of Max, darkly compelling Maximillion DeSoto. He had Neena drawn up, enslaved to the hot need he bred in them. The feeling of his tongue broaching their lips, then the rapidly turning aggressive behavior, left his Captain moaning.

By the time he pulled his mouth away, Neena was slipping completely under his control, hands kept on top of their thighs, not deigning to touch him without him telling them to. He didn’t fully pull away, though; instead dropping his head to kiss and lick the side of their face, traveling down to the side of their neck as Neena could do nothing but moan helplessly.

_ God _ , if only this was how they had gotten to know each other that first day, behind the closed doors of his private office...

Finally, when Max pulled away, still crouched close to them, he surprised Neena, who expected that his persona was still mostly that of punisher, authoritarian. “Thank you for that.” His eyes were warm now, rich green as he reached a hand up, sliding it along the nape of their neck, bringing fresh shivers through Neena’s body. As his eyes met theirs, Neena saw as some of the facade of his character slipped, his eagerness from earlier returned as powerfully as if it had never left him, even though it did not reflect in his impassive, cool voice. “And now I think we can start with some practice.”

Neena, on a whim, so filled with need and want that it must have radiated out of them, asked, “Can I see the Engineer soon?”

A bright show of the desire that must have burned through him appeared as Max ran his tongue over that sensually thick lower lip of his. “Oh yes, you will see him soon,  _ very _ soon.” He rose up, almost making Neena let out a helpless cry of dismay as he came away from them. “On the bed, lay back and I will take my vigil, where we can begin a shared meditation.”

Not sure what he meant, Neena nevertheless rose up, sat back on the bed, where they were brought partially back to reality with the feel of the cold, wet fabric from where they had sat on it before. They were shocked as they looked down between their spread knees and watched as Max sank to a knee there, his overbright, wild green eyes staring at them so deeply that it almost made Neena uncomfortable. 

Almost.

There was something so strangely beautiful, erotic to the sight of him in his full vestments, crouched between their thighs. If you could ignore the blush that covered his skin and how uncharacteristically messy his hair was, Max looked like he was prepared to do exactly what he said he was going to do: begin a period of deep meditation. Even if it was before a nude, female body.

Playing along, Neena looked down at their temporary spiritual counselor and asked, with feigned nervousness, “What did you have in mind, Vicar Maximillion?”

Max smirked, then the look dropped off of his face, replaced with an expression of false piousness. “There is a special massage I know of, one that will get rid of this tension that you are experiencing. Although perhaps a new one may grow in its place. I do believe that it will be...  _ pleasurable  _ to the both of us.”

Neena let out a long, exaggerated sigh as if this was some great consideration in her mind. In reality, they could barely stop themselves from humping off of the edge of the bed in anticipation. “I’ve been so  _ tense _ , Father Max.” They could hear the whine in their voice, the hopeless need.

A slight curve to the side of Max’s lips was like a small reward for Neena’s increasingly poor but honest attempts at playing along. “Goodness me. We can’t have that, can we?”

_ No, we cannot. _

Eventually even the heavy innuendo had to end; and, well, thank god for that. As Max pressed forward and ran a rough index finger and thumb, tracing the form of one of their labial lips, Neena had already been feeling like they were going to burst. Still, it was almost a wonder to see how he gazed at them as he seemed to take all of Neena in with this ravenous curiosity and desire that felt refreshingly wondering, inexperienced. As he traced the outer portion of Neena’s wet pussy, he did it gently, the texture of his calloused fingers a rough pleasure. Neena thought that he was going to keep taking his time, going with a graceful gentleness—a worshipful stroking that was quickly starting to inflame and aggravate their skin.

“I must…” he paused, and Neena was understanding of his hesitation, more than happy when he managed to regain his persona and thought of what he could say next. “Take a sacrament from your body.” He looked up at them, green eyes bright with mischief beneath even the unease in them. “I need to take it so that we can become conjoined. It’ll be a kiss—ah, a different kind of kiss, on your lower lips.”

Max, it seemed, had gotten another addiction besides ass play.

And, fuck, Neena loved to hear him talk like this, even though it was blatantly obvious that this was all too new to him, in between beautiful instances of his natural ability to at least play like this with them. 

“I would be honored to be the… vessel that you take the Great Engineer’s sacrament from.”

Neena saw the moment that his unease dissipated, overruled by desire, eagerness, how his lips parted and his gaze sharpened, looking directly into their eyes. “I think this is something you will enjoy as well.”

Were they starting to drool, at just the thought of getting head from Vicar Max? “So you’ve already said.”

Max’s lips rose on one side in a sneer, the backtalking from his disciple awakening the dark side of his previous persona. “Forgive me for trying to put you at ease,  _ my child _ . Why don’t you lay back…” he sank forward, close, until his breath, his very words, teased against the wet flesh of their vulva, their thighs. “and think of the joys of order, of redemption from his most holy of minds, brought forth from the long study and skillful research of your Vicar.”

Neena moaned, wanting to watch him as he dipped, his mouth meeting their pussy, but they gave into his order, sliding back. His lips grazed, parted, tongue flicking. It was as if he was indeed kissing them, a lewd echo of his earlier order to provide him with his first kiss. 

They could have laid there, accepting their holy counsel’s magnanimous offering between their legs, but as Neena started to rock in a broken rhythm against his face, Max withdrew, his voice a deliriously sharp, hoarse change from his earlier removed, even cooing comfort. “Now you are open to me. Your taste… it’s sweetened with the ardor you feel for this experience.” He seemed to sense how  _ un-holy  _ that term was, and he quickly amended it. “A need to experience a rapture, in becoming one, truly, with the Great Equation.”

Neena almost sobbed, unintentionally mirroring how aggravated they had left the man crouched between their legs earlier. They forgot the role they were playing; the very one they had wanted to beg for. “Oh my god, Max, I want you  _ so _ bad.”

Before Neena could realize their mistake, Max’s voice arose from between their thighs, sharp. “Disciple Castillo, you forget yourself. Remember our goal here; refer to me by my proper title.”

Neena looked down at him, past the obstacle formed by their own heaving tits, at the hard-faced man whose stare electrified and stalled them. Struggling to find their own seemingly lost control, Neena gasped and swallowed a ball of saliva that had formed in the back of their mouth. Sitting up on their elbows to better see him, Neena bit out, “I am sorry, Vicar Max.”

He blinked, his eyes turning a delicious, cruel coldness. “My full name, if you would please.”

Neena’s lips parted, fell open. “What?”

He barely seemed to move, the deceptive calm and the overwhelming impression of easy authority transformed him into someone he may have never been, except in either of their darkest fantasies. “My full name and title, which is  _ Vic-ar Max-i-mill-i-on De-So-to _ .” He said it slowly, rounding each syllable luxuriously on his tongue, using those cunt flavored lips.

Neena’s lower body arched, thrust up, as if bound to the bed by something more than Max’s power over them. “Yes, Vicar Maximillion… DeSoto. I am sorry, I don’t—I never meant to offend you.”

In an instant the cruel edge to his lips disappeared and he smiled at them, a thrillingly dark, rewarding expression. “Do not worry yourself, Disciple Castillo. Just be mindful of my station, and yours.” Something overwarm flickered in his eyes, like a fire blooming to life. “You may watch, I will continue my vigil here. I will… purify this aspect of you.” He looked at them, his face again transforming, as if he were beseeching them. “Please, it is of paramount importance that you cooperate and give yourself to the emotions you will feel. Being honest in them, not holding back to any  _ vocalizations  _ that you may feel, are all crucial in this exercise.”

Back to playing; drawn into the trap of his words, his mannerisms, they stared at the man who became a momentary tool of their redemption. “How will I know when I have properly pleased the Great Engineer?”

Max began to smile anew, the muscles in his face taking a cruel, greedy set before he hid it behind a magnanimous mask. “Oh, my dear, you shall know, but if you do not,” he surprised Neena by yanking them, pulling them closer, taking them off balance from where they had propped themselves up on their hands. “I will be sure to tell you the—very—instant that you have pleased your Engineer acceptably.” He finished by burying his face against Neena’s pussy, hungrily devouring there even as Neena began to reflexively tighten their thighs around his head in shock.

He upped his previous efforts, plunging his tongue inside of them, rolling his lips against their vulva, ignoring their moaning and hectic movements. Used to the feeling of his tongue spearing them, Neena cried his name out when he removed it, running it mercilessly against the oversensitized length of their clit, surrounding it in his tongue in an obscene slurping sound before he rolled his tongue up to their tip and engulfed it in his mouth.

As Neena struggled to their elbows, they looked down, realized that he was looking up at them, half of his face hidden by their pussy. 

Could they cum, this fast, against the assault of his mouth? 

As Neena slipped back, helpless against the waves of rolling pleasure that ate them from the abdomen up, acclimated to the feel of his mouth, just as he moved back. 

They let out a cry of dismay, and sobbed out, “N...no…”

Max got to his knees, grunting softly. “Do not worry, I will take you down the path to sweet redemption, if you will place your trust in me.” He paused, then added, “Do you put your trust in me?”

“Yes.” They said it, without a moment of hesitation, even so mindlessly close to an orgasm.

“Then tell me how devoted you are to me.”

Neena was broken from how close they had been riding to an orgasm, or at least the teasing path to it. They almost wept as they said, “Yes, you, I want  _ you _ , only  _ you _ .”

Max could have made a snarl, or it could have been a choked laugh. “If you mean it, tell me you love me.”

This was an asshole move. At least, Neena would have acknowledged it as one, if they were in their right mind. Whether it was because of how easily Neena slipped into the role they were inhabiting, too realistically for comfort, or because of some traitorous emotion that they never would have admitted to while sober, Neena didn’t think before they shouted out, “ _ I love you _ .”

Max, his voice so infuriatingly smug that he would have been in danger of getting hit with a slap if Neena wasn’t completely under his compulsion, said, “You know, I actually don’t need to hear that, if it’s some fact I already know.” Before Neena could react, he added, “How about you tell me that you want me. Tell me how  _ much _ you want me.”

So far gone, Neena gasped, a complete tumult of emotions rushing through them so fast that it felt like they could become swallowed by it. Not daring to look down at him, Neena cried out, “I want you, Max, I want you now, I want you all night.”

He added it without a moment of hesitation. “And tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

When he spoke again in that soft, compelling voice, it was all Neena could do to not shout. “And  _ every day _ after that?”

Finally something besides the need to satiate their lust took precedence in them, something clicking in Neena through what they were saying, admitting aloud; even if it was, supposedly, in the safe boundaries of a shared fantasy. They looked down at him, almost stopped by the intense, heavy expression he wore. “Max—”

He lifted his chin towards them, a willful authority to him that demanded, compelled. “It’s Vicar Maximillion, Castillo. I want to hear your devotion to me. Make me believe it.”

Neena had forgotten that reality existed outside of this fantasy, the man who had been on the path to re-discovering himself with their help. They were staring into the maddened eyes of the darkness that existed in him, the hostility and the possessive heat that they had turned on in him. They had brought out not just an arousing parody of his old self; Neena had aroused some of the darkest aspects of Max, which had so easily come out to play.

And the sight of that harsh expression on his face, even the understanding that they had engendered this in him, incensed them. It was exhilarating to see yet another side of their lover, strange and unbelievable though he was, to be that. Made it, strangely, alright for what felt like the first time in their life, to feel that same emotion they had first felt when they had willingly gone to him sober, how even the supposedly unselfish thought of letting him find someone else, a more innocent and devoted person, had once filled them with a possessive anger. A desire to take what they wanted to be theirs. And theirs, alone.

It made a harsh sneer of their own grow on their face, splayed out, completely exposed to him, previously so close to an orgasm. The momentary lapse of their own confidence left them, and Neena took power in how they admitted to it, throwing it in his face. “I will personally garrote the first person I see trying to keep me from what’s mine.”

The fantasy slipped between them, forgotten if even for a moment. “And  _ what’s _ yours?” He almost whispered the question.

Neena stared him down, a man they had grown alongside without thinking of it. Changed in both small as well as massive ways. “Max, you are mine.  _ Mine, mine, mine. _ ”

There wasn’t a moment to feel regret, if they experienced any at that moment, or shame, or much of anything, as Max returned the admittance with only a quirk of his lips—an infuriatingly controlled gesture—as he dropped his head down. With no warning, he rose a hand up between their legs and, in quick succession, dove his index and middle fingers inside of them, filling, stretching as he began to slide in and out of them. 

Neena moaned, reaching over in a futile embrace and clutch at some of the bedding, bundled in their arms. They bit into the blanket, moaning, crying, as Max spread and pressed inside of them. They wanted to cum, given into helplessly grinding against his hand and the bed, the most choken, idiotic sounds pouring out of them as they didn’t dare to look at the man they had declared their feelings for. 

And then the orgasm ripped through their body, connecting them to the man inside of them.

When it ended, Neena whimpered, too shocked by the activity to do much else but roll back in place, look at the man who was now standing between their legs. 

He was wearing the vestments, but the fantasy of this being anyone else than the Max that Neena had fucked numerous times and had been so—very—afraid of losing only a few hours before, was gone. His eyes bright with emotion and his face tight and wet with their need, Max stared at them, his chest and abdomen heaving as he struggled to breathe. 

“I need… I want you.” He looked at them meaningfully, at a fresh loss for words.

Neena trembled with their own denied need, licked their lips, chapped from biting down into the blanket. “Take me then.”

Max sighed, the muscles in his face relaxing for just a moment before he lowered his hands to the bottom of his gold-lined cassock, pulling it up to reveal the lewd display his straining dick made against his once chaste-looking blue trousers. His hands fumbled slightly, unfastening his pants before he pulled himself up, holding his dick free. He looked up, made eye contact with Neena as nothing but need burning in his eyes.

It was never graceful to see an older man crouch on top of their lover, but it was enthralling, endearing, even, to watch as he pulled his trousers down to his knees and sank onto the bed until he had crouched over them. Still wearing the cassock, he seemed to hesitate, looking down at them, his earlier bravado deserted him before he could have a chance to go for it.

Neena was too impatient to wait to, as they had once warned him months ago, rip the wrapping paper off of their present. With a growl, Neena half sat up, grabbing onto his shoulders, pressing their lips to his in a desperate, hungry kiss.

He tasted of their cum, and it brought every thought that had been in Neena’s mind to a screeching halt. 

Max sank against them, Neena feeling the moment he lost his balance, surprised as he kissed them, nearly crushing them before he re-settled his hands on the bed on either side of Neena’s head. That was the sole lapse in his control as Max pressed against them, joining their bodies in a hug with a soft moan that both breathed out, pressing the embroidered material of his cassock to Neena’s oversensitized skin, their nipples. The feel, of him sliding his hand down between them, and with a little bit of maneuvering, led to him pressing the head of his dick against their over-sensitized labia. He sank his hips down, pushing through eager flesh until he was half-sunk inside of them. 

Neena let out a trailing whimper, lips quivering in anticipation as they felt Max dip, pressing his head against the side of their neck, his breath huffing, warm, against their skin there. They sank into a soft, aggressive rhythm, until Max was sinking completely in and out of them. 

Neena was in too much ecstasy to think about the fact that they were being irresponsible, even with a guy who they had had more than a one night stand with. Gasping, Neena looked up into Max’s eyes, where he looked lost to pleasure, at least from the waist up still dressed in his cassock which was ridden up to his hips, surely baring his beautiful ass from behind as he sank into them, again and again. He was the epitome of lost chastity, a release to a power more joyful than anything he had once been beholden to.

It would have been easy for Neena to just let it keep going, perhaps even enjoy the implication of deep profanity of having an ex-Vicar bareback them wearing nothing but his tainted vestments.

But Neena, having to un-tighten their teeth from where they had clenched tight onto their bottom lip, finally threw their head back and cried out, “M...Max, you’re not wearing a condom!”

At first Neena didn’t think he had heard them. Max thrust into them in a near fury, then abruptly he pulled out, was sitting with his knees on either side of their hips. It made for an appealing sight; Max, red-faced, half-drunk and completely turned on in his cassock. His dick, shining wet, seeming to point at Neena in accusation from the right edge of his cassock.

Breathing hard, Max raised a hand to his head, gasping, obviously struggling to regain his thoughts. Swallowing hard, he looked down at them, said, “I… I’m sorry, I didn’t  _ think _ .” A sincere expression filled his face, realization and shock. “It’s like it wasn’t me there.”

Neena almost leaped up, grabbed onto him as they realized what he must have meant. In the moment, Max wasn’t himself, he was truly a different persona. He was the man whose clothes he was inhabiting, still playing the role they had started earlier. Perhaps it was the first time Max had, honestly, enjoyed being that man. The Vicar who had been freed by passion.

But it seemed like Max had gone back to himself, stepping off of the bed. Neena sat up, watching him as Max looked around before a new realization came over him which Neena could see on his face. He blinked, looking at them, managed to look disappointed with an erection. Finally, he said, “You didn’t happen to bring any condoms… did you?”

Some part of Neena wanted to tease him, extend his suffering for a little mock punishment for how he had forced them to beg for him. But the need to cum anew had gotten to the point where it was almost a matter of life and death. Of course, as they spoke, a mixture of their drunkenness and horniness made it near impossible to string a coherent thought together, let alone talk. “There’s a box… in… in the closet that I brought.”

The look of joy on Max’s face was downright wonderful, beaming for a moment before he turned around, hurrying to the closet. Neena had to bite back the sudden urge to laugh as she watched him stagger away wearing only his cassock, with appealing peeks of his firm, thick ass showing whenever he moved his arms up.

Max found what he was looking for in the closet without needing their help, but when he turned around, Neena realized that what he wanted wasn’t quite what they expected. Still delirious from how close to cumming they had been, it took Neena a moment longer than they normally would have called him out for it. “I’m as wet as fruit, why the hell’dya need lube?” 

Well, there was ONE reason; but as frustrated as they were at the moment, Neena’s first thought wasn’t on eating or playing with the ex-Vicar’s ass.

He was just a foot away as he approached them when Max stopped, pausing as an oddly thoughtful expression filled the face of a man wearing the top of his old vestments with his hard dick sticking out, a jar of lube and a handful of condoms in either hands. “Well… in light of the mood, why, I would say that I have been itching to tap your ass.”

Neena almost choked, not sure if they were letting out a bark of laugh or a groan. How long HAD it been, since their ass had gotten, not just fingered, but  _ fucked _ , splitting them open?  _ Well… that would have to be since the first night together, with a head full of drugs.  _ And it would have been Max. 

Sitting up on the edge of the bed, they grinned at him, their ass contracting in anticipation. “ _ You _ … you’re wanting to fuck my ass?”

And, god save men like Maximillion DeSoto, because he answered back with no hesitation, “Oh, I’m  _ going _ to fuck that ass.”

Neena squirmed, biting their lip in anticipation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I revised and added to this chapter more times than I care to count. And I mean it.
> 
> Holy shit, sis, I have another story idea that HAS to be, what, a year before I can feel ready to write it, which I want to write the story beats down for, I have my original project, and on top of that, EVERY time I go through this again I find more to add. *distressed shrieking noises*
> 
> Hey, was the religious kink too much? I never see role playing IN fiction, and on top of that, I never see it involving a loving couple. So this scene was fucking long. Waitaminute, this was 10k words?? UGH. Baby smut writers can wrap a whole, shoddily written, piece out of the entirety of this. This was just one part of a wild night. Which we're still not done with.
> 
> The original piece I'm working on is... dragging, but I feel like I'm building up steam with it. Or... something. Like this, I can't seem to stop adding wordcount, fuck my life anyway. Or just fuck me gently with a chainsaw. As I mentioned earlier: I also have a fan fic idea I desperately need to write the story beats out for. Just... god. 
> 
> Before I sound too much like an ingrate, I wanted to shout out to Testanon and Pumpkinperson, never forgot about your support and kind words. This whole fandom and its readers is amazing, it's been great to watch it grow... even as I realize that my once a week upload is grinding even on me. But, I mean, come on; 10K WORD CHAPTER! Some people have less than 1k for a chapter and call it a night!
> 
> Ugh, nevermind.
> 
> You guys see the new art in Danypooh80's *A Dream Across the Universe*? SaintofTrash's artwork is sooo good. Read that story if you haven't already, that art will come up as you read. It's cute but also... very Cullen. Which is great. I feel like BioWare and Outer Worlds has a LOT of cross over appeal.


	31. 30: Fall in Love with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'cause there's just a few like you,  
> So young and real...

Max knew that one of his favorite methods of participating in sodomy was, well,  _ sodomy _ in the literal sense, with him as the receiver. But all things being equal and honest would have him admitting that he did miss giving that unbelievably fulfilling sensation to another. And to feel the tight embrace around his cock.

The one he wanted to feel that sensation with was laid on the bed. Staring at him with the hungriest, brightest eyes that Max believed he had never seen set in their face. Gloriously, it had little to do with the booze that had worn almost off and everything to do with the hard fuck he had given them.

Wasn’t it supposed to be gauche to take such pride, joy in the way that a lover reacted in the aftermath of being—in the parlance of the very person that was laying on the bed— _ fucked _ ?

Neena was laid back partially and half sitting up, dressed only in a rosy blush that covered them from head to toe. What drew Max right to them was the quality their dark eyes had, made all the more intense and compelling by how blown out their pupils were.

And that was before you took in the sight of Neena’s sprawled open thighs, their wet, succulent pussy. Although hidden for now, Max thought endlessly of the sweetness of their ass, something he had not had a chance to express his need, his love for, for a very long time. Even though he wanted so much to cum; to the point where it hurt more than he could imagine something that was supposed to be  _ enjoyable, _ he didn’t know if he had it in him after he came to go again.

Which was all a nice way to say; Max wanted— _ needed _ —to fuck Neena’s ass.

First, though...

Max grunted, trading in some of the persona he had earned as he reached down and with struggling, angry swipes, tore his boots off before he shimmied his trousers off of his ankles.

Not quite finished with his accursed task, he heard his lover calling out to him. “Look at you,” Neena said, her voice thick, husked. “We used to always be at odds with each other. Now we’re doing this, again.”

Glancing back up, Max forgot the awkward fumbling as he drank in the reality that was him standing there, with a charismatic, beautiful person looking at him with far too much that Max was afraid to name in their eyes. It felt like in an instant it brought out a side of him once more that Max was hardly aware of at first. He stood more proudly, squaring his shoulders back like he was posing, taking a fully aware pride in his physicality that he had spent most of his life an alien to. Even if he had lost some of the more impressive nature he may have reasonably, once, possessed but had waned with some of the unfortunate effects of age and weight gain. It had also made a grin reappear on his mouth, the realization that he was wearing his old cassock and nothing else as far from his mind as the scent of Saltuna or the misery and shame of Tartarus.  


“I would say that, more than anything, we were like two sides of the same coin.”

A little sign of something, perhaps, that Neena had not wanted to show—some weakness, a need?—appeared, as they softly panted. Their eyes fell from his face and seemed to catch onto his hips, his crotch. His penis. Without giving it a second thought, Max lewdly thrust his hips out, taking a primal joy in watching their eyes seem to widen.

Had he succeeded in fucking them silly?

The continued, the radiating pressure from his groin felt like it re-awakened him into the moment, drew Max out from the role of an appraising viewer on the beautiful creature sprawled back on their bed. He continued to watch their face as he reached over to set the telling packages on the table next to the bed. It was hard to look away; it was amazing to watch his Captain out of their element, looking for all of the system like they were transfixed, mollified. On  _ him;  _ old, stuffy, bitter Maximillion DeSoto now transformed into an object worthy of desire. _Ravenous_ desire.  


And Max, who had at least told himself that he did not feel the need, the insatiable craving for power any longer, felt that he  _ was _ such a figure in that moment; as strange a joke as that was, with only his cassock on and while wearing no trousers. As though in this context he were a powerful man that he had never been able to achieve the status of in his life while wearing his vestments earnestly. 

But there was only one purpose which the power he could feel coursing through him like an electrical current which appealed to for him.

The thought sobered him, sharpened him. So Max bent down, cupping his cock. Not unlocking his gaze from the eyes of his ship’s Captain as he lifted up one side of his lips in a cool sneer. “Although, maybe we’re a  _ little  _ more different than that.” 

If not for Neena, he would never be in this position, ever, with another human being. A muse of sensuality if ever there was one.

Although that bent for poetics, he knew, was beyond the desire of his Captain. Right now especially.

He saw it, the subtle flash of something in their eyes, the soft, spasming motion they made with their knees, their thighs. He could just imagine the exquisite, soft squeezing of the places that their thighs hid from view. Still, he could also see the untamed wildness in them, even for that brief moment before they sank back into their earlier role. 

“How are we different?”

Intoxicating in its own way to Max was the brief thought of, what felt like a lifetime ago, Neena would have admitted as having more in common with trash like Graham Bryant than with him. 

He let out a bark of laugh, let go of his cock as he found a condom packet. “You, me,” he shook his head, clicking his tongue with his teeth. “let’s face it: you’re in need of guidance. A helping hand from a more… even-tempered, _mature_ mind.” He worked the condom off easily—practice letting him pull it out and prepare it without having to look down at it. He kept his eyes locked on theirs as he brandished his penis, like it were indeed a tool of his old station. “The only question is: are you worthy and prepared to receive my guidance?”

Neena bucked back, exciting and slightly irritating Max who had been having non-Board approved _fun_ by imagining that Neena had been a newcomer to some house of worship he oversaw, one that didn't smell like industrial waste, and he had been there to give them the benefit of his even-handed, but stern, guidance. 

“Now, I thought you just said, what was it,” Neena licked their lips. “that you wanted to tap my ass?”

Max saw it as an opportunity to take this position as deeply as he could, diving into the role of the Vicar who needed to correct his oh so gorgeous disciple.  


“Give me one reason why I ought to take you with me into the warmth that accompanies the approval of the Great Engineer, if you’re so rebellious that you treat the person, oh, I’m sorry,  _ the figure who forms the only bridge between you and redemption _ , like I am a slut at your beck and call.”

He thought, surely, that Neena would have taken the direction, gone with it. Again they surprised—excited him—when they sat up, gazed directly into his face, the challenge already in those eyes before they said anything. “But _ aren’t  _ you my slut?”

They had clearly broken the immersion on this fantasy. Still, his penis spasmed, pulsed with hot, painful need. Almost more in love with their body than ought to have been possible. Briefly, he wondered how this person who was pushing back as hard as they did would react, if he jutted his dick with his fist, over and over, until he came, even shot his cum on them. 

But no, this was Neena pushing him, forcing him to improvise. Prove he was worthy to take this role that he was playing, yes. But, maybe, also that this was him proving that he could do this with them, for as long as Neena would have him. And that he would not shy away from any of it. Descend into the flustered, obnoxious ass he had been when they had first met him.  


Looking down at his disciple who doubted him, Max changed his persona, from the compassionate, almost cold Vicar to the authoritarian. The one he needed to be in this moment.

“Tell me you want this cock.” The word felt almost foreign on his tongue. But not ill-fitting, distasteful. “You want this,” he motioned with the part of him he had just named, feeling a thrill when he felt the weight of their gaze on his— _ cock _ . “in your ass.”

Neena’s eyes were wide, large pools of dark, delicious secrets, taking him, all of him, in. Then they dragged their eyes up to his face, gazed at him. Prepared for them to keep fighting him back, Max was surprised when Neena, breathless, said, “I want that.”

Max could feel the words leaving his mouth, as if it were another man speaking through him; one who was used to dominating, doing and saying the kinds of things that he surely did not have the strength to say, least of all to this person whom he was afraid of disappointing. “Want this?” When Neena nodded, staring into his eyes with a need, a devotion that in any other situation might have frozen him, he added, “Want me to fuck your tight, jiggly ass like you want, need me to?” As they nodded again, Max let a full smirk grow on his face, shaking his head as he finished readying the condom, knew even without looking at them that Neena was staring him, watching Max with a hungry, needing intensity. He looked up as he slipped the rubber down his cock, relieved to find that he wasn’t as full to bursting as he had been earlier, would be able to enjoy this, especially encased in a condom.

And he wanted to enjoy every moment in their ass, wringing the loud cries from their sweet body. 

He watched as Neena, in a surprisingly meek and subservient move, rolled over, started to position themselves on their hands and knees. Although the sight of their ass, raised high in the air, waiting for Max’s touch, was immensely appealing, he wanted— _ needed _ —something else. 

And besides, presumption deserved punishment. “No. On your back.”

Neena stayed like that, then dropped their head so that their forehead was resting on the bed. “What’s the matter? Don’t want to ride me?”

That did, in fact, more than appeal to him, but Max wanted to be with Neena, all of them, and he wanted to be able to look into their eyes the whole time. Their eyes on him while he was roleplaying was half of the reason to do any of this in the first place. It was all he could do not to bark an order at his Captain, but there was something, some understanding of the role he was playing then, that let him know that he had no place yelling, would lose his grip on the role if he did. 

“On your back, Castillo.”, he ordered his voice almost gentle if not for the ardor he could hear in his own words, rasping.  


And, almost as a way of rewarding his stiff grasp on the role and position he was in, Neena rolled over, sprawled on their back on the bed. As easy as it was to look into their eyes, it was just as effortless for Max’s eyes to slide down their body, to look at the glistening, wet lips of their vulva that he had so thoroughly fucked.

That was when it came to him; something like the inspiration that he had once used to hunt for, fruitlessly, as he searched through endless texts, trying to find some vision of the Great Engineer. Who would have thought, that hearing about the journal of a Philsophist would lead here to where he had finally found a cause. A worthy reason for worship, who lay, supine, before him now.

Max had a feeling that he might not need as much help from the lube as he had originally thought. For everything in the universe, he had once read frequently, there was a rhyme and a reason. Still, he carried the jar as he came to stand between their legs, watching their face the whole time. Watched, with infinite pleasure as Neena looked at his condom-encased cock, the lube, then his face. 

He had been frowning, deep in thought. But as he took in the unusual sight, of Neena Castillo at a loss, at his mercy, Max could feel the rough, hard grin that spread across his face.

As he sank closer to them, though, Neena’s eyes caught onto his groin then they said, “Go gentle on my ass, would you? Been a while.” _By the Engineer's fake balls_ , they managed to sound at least half sincere, simpering in the face of an older trusted authority figure standing over them with his condom-encased cock in his hand.  


Max lined it up, then pushed in, could swear he could feel the grunt of shock, of surprise that rumbled through their body as he sank into Neena’s welcoming pussy.

Neena moaned, the sound far from disappointed. “M-Max, thought you said you were gonna—” 

He took those words from them as he leaned forward, sank totally into Neena as he kissed them. Took their mouth, sliding his tongue in, almost as thrilled by the sensation of Neena’s mouth giving way as much as the feeling of them wrapped around his cock. He brought up his hand, sliding it up the back of their neck, threading his fingers through the hair that had fallen loose as he embraced Neena, joined with them as fully as he could. Swallowed their next moan, this one lush and warm.

He could keep going like this; and Max  _ would  _ enjoy it, thrusting in and out until he could make them cum. But he had a need, and he could sense that they wanted it, too.  


But it was hard, bordering on impossible, to not take some delicious licks of his cock inside of their pussy. Still he could feel it, the moment it was time to do it, the precise, minute timing of it.

Pulling out slowly—loathe to leave the hot, tight embrace of his Captain—Max looked up, watching the expressions on Neena’s face as he did it. Reveling in how much they were honestly moved, effected by him. By him fucking them. He waited until he saw the awareness return to them, the sharp intelligence. And he had more than a breath to further remove himself from the need to cum.

Then Max found their luscious ass with one hand, guided his cock with the other. Took a breath, pushed in past the tight ring.

They groaned; at first, Max’s first instinct was to stop, see if he was hurting them. But a quick glance saw the dazed, hungry look on their face. One that he knew that look too well, not only because it was a feeling he had felt himself, but due to a deliciously hazy memory. When he had been buried deep in Neena's mind he was at first astonished to realize how he got first row seats to the parade of perversions that ran through their mind, all of which seemed to involve him. That had been a _real_ fucking awakening, one that might have otherwise never led to him becoming not just sexually active, but quite active in sex he had only ever heard of in rumors. Or in confiscated books, the kind he kept in a hidden drawer in his desk.

It had been fucking fantastic to feel the thought, flow through their mind, that even after the other things they had done prior, that prissy, uptight Max wouldn't be ready to fuck their ass.

Well, _prissy, uptight_ Max had a passenger's seat into their needs and pleasures and knew for a fact that he had fucked them better than anyone ever had before.

He pushed in, thrilled by the sensation, the way they tightened around him, how Neena moaned, their hands tight from where they had gripped onto his wrists. Not a plea to stop, but a desperate begging to go go  _ go.  _ Neena was fully relaxed and eager for him, took all of him without the need he had had for slow, irresistible strokes inside of him.

As he bottomed them out, Max reached down between them, running his fingers against their slick, plump lips, could feel Neena give, jut up in desperation as he slipped his fingers in, stuffing them in both holes. He groaned, sinking fully onto the bed as he felt all of Neena clench and spasm around him, felt the need the cum to rise in him from where it had been withheld, ignored. 

He roughly slipped his fingers in, felt Neena choke out a cry, running his fingers inside of them where he knew they most loved to feel something filling, pressing; especially when he was fucking their ass. So Max tried to stop the hard urge by focusing on them, pumping his hips so that he pulled in and out of their ass and he started to fuck his mewling Captain with his fingers. As the feeling grew too exquisite, Max focused with all of the strength he had and stilled, with almost all of Neena surrounding him.

Neena made a high pitched, helpless cry, falling on their back. It was dangerous to do it but Max looked up, drinking in the sight of Neena splayed back, filled with all of him.

That instinct proved far too prescient. So he pulled out, gasping, almost afraid to touch himself, oversensitized. 

It was also a good time to add lube, which Max did, with a lot less finesse than he wished he had, fumbling the container open. His wish, that Neena didn’t see him open it, was shattered when he heard them bite back a laugh.

Max shot his gaze up to their face, at first wanting to chastise them for daring to laugh at the man who was fucking their ass. Then the words stuck in his throat as he saw them, shaking with laughter. 

_ Beautiful _ . He shouldn’t have been sucked into it, now of all times, but sometimes it honestly struck him, and knowing that there was no way in hell that they would find him taken by their beauty to be appealing, made him quick to hide it before it could show on his face. But he was vulnerable, and even in that moment, his heart hurt from having to stop from wanting to say it.

One thing he was freshly aware of was the fact that he was not nude. 

_ Fuck _ , he didn’t want to wear the thing, the memory of his old self any longer, not when he was in front of the focus of his new worship. Max almost ripped it off of him—more unfortunate awkwardness—as he fumbled the buttons loose, then pulled it up, off of him, almost wishing that he did rip it. Naked, Max saw that Neena had witnessed that, had started to laugh anew.

So, maybe from the pressure of having to hide it for as long as he had or from how recent the fear had been that he would never get a chance to say it, he felt the need threatening to break out of him. Running a generous amount of lube on himself, Max prepared for the best way he knew how to get Neena’s attention.

Standing over Neena, Max waited until they quit giggling, looked up at him. He saw the surprise, then the tension on their face, their beautiful lips curled in silent cry. 

It might have been a bad time to do it, but Max was nothing if not awkward, whether he embraced it or not. He leaned in, unable to resist taking a heavy, quick kiss. Then, rearing back, Max got ready to fuck their ass with a vengeance and he said what might have been, sober and not-emotional, the worst time to say those words.

“I love you.”

* * *

Neena froze, struck by what he had said, forgetting what he was about to do before he thrust inside of them. 

They made a sound, very much like a strangled garbling, and their mind flatlined as they felt all of Max slide into them. As he pulled partially back out, Neena regained their thoughts, staring into his eyes as they tried to find the words they needed to say right now. Knowing, somehow, that Max hadn’t said it in the heat of the moment. It had been something he had been thinking, planning, saw it in the serious expression on his face.

And had picked what had to be one of the worst moments imaginable to say it.

Max, divested of all of his vestments and drenched in frustration and languid desire, hair matted to his head, mouth tightened into a mask of painfully engulfing pleasure, fucked their ass after he had just confessed his feelings to them.

But Neena lost whatever they had been planning to say, as he thrust back in, then reached back down to slide his thick, rough fingers back inside of them. The feeling, of being full of Max, emptied and robbed them of the ability to think. And when he got into a rhythm—a  _ really  _ good rhythm—Neena almost forgot that he had blurted it out. When he bent forward and pulled them into an embrace, kissing them deeply, Neena wasn’t aware that they were doing anything more than clutching his back, kissing him back. Thoughtless, brainless, a slave to an at least very physical kind of love.  


Neena rode him back as hard as they could, eager to chase their orgasm, even as the memory of what he had said faded in the background as they greedily experienced Max filling them over and over. As they came, spasming like Max had either succeeded in or spectacularly failed in performing an exorcism, they could swear they were speaking in broken begging.

The first thought they had, as they came down from the heavy orgasm, was the shock; that Max had the unbelievable stamina of someone younger than perhaps either of them.

That thought didn’t linger for long, as they felt him grow stiff and his lips fell away from them as he dropped his head next to their neck, letting out a guttural groan that ended in the sound of him whispering their name. Sprawled back, helpless in the aftershocks of a double penetrative orgasm, Neena realized far too late that Max had cum.

It ought to have been abundantly obvious to Neena, when the man wasn't pummeling her ass like they had been an automechanical that had just insulted his favorite tossball team.

They laid there, intertwined until both had more than recovered. Of course, that term was relative.

Neena could feel him pulling out, and as if a switch had been pulled in their head, Neena stood up, the sudden movement sending a sudden electrical shock through their body, locking their knees into place. 

Max said something— _ Neena, are you alright?— _ and he was back in front of them, grabbing onto their arms to steady them. He probably didn’t expect them to push him off, in an immediate hurry to get to the shower for a sudden need to get under the spray of water.

Fuck, this was one of the few times when Neena tended to lose their cool in the afterglow of sex. And it had to be with the guy they had been trying to make believe they were some kind of a sex god. 

Somehow they made it, turning the water on and withstanding the bracing cold of the water as it slapped their skin, finding the bar of soap and their rag from earlier and making  _ good _ use of it. They had scrubbed between their thighs rabidly, relieved to discover that they had actually not, well, soiled themselves. The man had applied an overly-generous amount of lube all over and inside their ass, and even by their standards, Neena's thighs were a mess from their cum.  


_ Christ, his arm, let alone his hand, must be coated. _

Although they tended to overreact whenever they felt anything wet after someone had played with their ass, Neena knew that they were not about to stop a habit. Not after a single incident, well in their past, that they were not about to ever, _ever_ tell the man—who was undoubtedly watching their sudden escape into the shower with shock. And maybe wondering what the hell he had gotten involved in.  


Not that the crab-walk run away had likely been anything to help with it, but Neena wondered, as they started to numbly clean the rest of their body, if Max thought at all that they had an ounce of anything  _ cool  _ in them left. Forget sexy.  


Then the man himself spoke up, standing at the entrance to the open shower stall that had led to this happening in the first place. “Alright, I get the feeling I shouldn’t ask, but—”

Neena sighed, not wanting—daring—to turn around to look at him. “Look, I just—I like to be clean. After someone plays the back end.”  _ Please, don’t let him ask any more questions.  _

“I do notice that.”

_ Oh, you  _ notice  _ it? Be kind of hard to miss it.  _ “I’m not a germaphobe about anything else, but uh…” Neena winced, trying to find what it was they had been trying to say. “I like to be clean, after. Right?”

Half-expecting him to laugh at them, or say that he found them to be weird about this, Max instead wordlessly entered the shower, standing behind them. Neena turned, looking up at him, strangely relieved by the soft, warm look in his half-lidded eyes. He reached over—Neena thought that he was going to hold them—and he grabbed ahold of the soap. Something in his eyes suggested that he saw the expectation in Neena, although he didn’t mention it.

Instead, he quietly washed himself and Neena leaned back against the shower wall to stare. Max looked, in the afterglow, like an almost completely different creature, relaxed in that way that they must have been intensely in denial about to not have recognized immediatally after she had woken up from their drug-fueled sex frenzy. 

Their insides still felt like they were filled with sensation, with feeling from what they had so recently done. But there was something else, a strange heaviness to their chest, that drew their mind even more than the impression that filled their body.

It was as if Max had not left them, once he had gotten inside. And here, in front of them, under the stream of water, with at least the first burst of white hot desire worn out of them, left a strange thought in Neena’s mind.

That, and the memory of a confession, uttered before he had continued to fuck them, hard, felt like it refused to leave their mind. They wanted to focus on it, obsess over it. But Neena told themselves, despite whether or not he wanted to deal with it, they weren’t in any shape, or desire, to want to deal with it head-on. All they wanted to do was fall asleep, tangled in bed with him like this, or fuck him again. They just weren’t sure which, yet, they wanted to do.

So deep in their thoughts, their tangled feelings of need for him that didn’t want to coalesce into anything, they almost forgot that Max was there, a man and not some vague concept. Or, for that matter, a foregone conclusion for them to decide the fate, or intentions of, for themselves.

Max leaned down, apparently finished washing himself, placing either of his hands on the small of their back, drawing them to him. Neena acted automatically, standing up further, wrapping their arms around his neck. 

_ It just feels good to hold him. _

Their lips connected, as if it were the most natural thing to do. Soon they were sliding against each other, freshly washed. The decision of if they were going to want to lay back down or fuck him again was made for them as they pressed up against him, their hands moving over his body, up to the back of his head.

His hand had slid down before they realized it, thick fingertips teasing the hole he had ravaged only minutes before. He made a faux-thoughtful expression and said, "You know, I think I might have overlooked something, you wouldn't mind if I made sure I didn't forget something, won't you?" Already so far gone after having cum around him so recently, Neena just nodded dumbly, still not missing the cracked grin on Max's face as he motioned for them to turn around.

No sooner than they did, hearing a soft grunt behind them, Neena turned their head and stared at the larger man now sat on his knees, prostrate before their ass. They managed a gasp before they saw him duck his head forward, beginning a ravaging assault on their holes with his tongue and fingers.

There wasn’t any thought for what they were going to be in the future, not even a thought of what they were going to do come morning. For the time being, both  _ The Unreliable’s  _ Captain and Counselor were too busy enjoying each other, taking a chance that they might have missed if the day had gone differently. 

It was just too bad that this had to be in a shitty little cabin on Monarch, and not in a room that was scented heavily with incense and had a four-poster bed. But, hell, Neena had been in worse places and with far worse people than Maximillion DeSoto. And in all honesty, the fact that they were here with him made any nights Neena had spent in extravagant places in the past not even worth thinking about.

Certainly not while the ex-Vicar's tongue was buried against their ass.

* * *

Georgia raised her foot up to the back of the seat, taking a drag out of the cigarette that they had gotten by way of a “final meal”. The blood flow from the surely broken nose that one of that sneaky Kat’s people had given her wasn’t stopping, and she was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to stop. But,  _ shit _ , it wasn’t like nosebleeds or minor injuries were anything that she wasn’t used to dealing with. 

Huffing the cigarette smoke out, Georgia’s eyes glanced over at the other cells in the block, situated on the second floor of the Mayson Drygoods store. Of course, when Georgia had last been in Fallbrook—had worked for longer that she would have liked to admit in this shithole that she had been ready to take, nevertheless as  _ her _ shithole—this building used to be their jail and armory. Now, only the members of SubLight Salvage were allowed up here. Wouldn’t want them tourists that were supposed to think this place, on reeking, stinking Monarch, was supposed to be anything but the  _ best vacation destination _ in the system.

The bitter thoughts swirled incessantly in her mind as she resumed staring at the metal wall of her prison. Wondered for how long walls like these could hold a force of nature like her for much longer.

The sound drew her attention, but already expecting it as she had been, Georgia allowed the thought that had been building in her mind to fully form. 

Her first priority was Fallbrook—of course—but after what the fucking crew of  _ The Unreliable  _ had done to embarrass her and her boys, she was gonna make it a point to hunt every last one down, even if they managed to flee into the night.

Especially that hunk who had lied, to her face.

Grunting, and the sound of someone hitting the ground, hard, managed to shake the thin, poorly constructed walls of the jail.  _ Well, there went one of the few people that idiot managed to make stick around sober to watch me and my boys tonight.  _ Georgia finally unlocked her gaze from the wall, her mind projecting a future that she envisioned for all of the motherfuckers who lied to her. Lied, and kept her from what was hers.

Nelson, who had since her exile become the owner of the shop on the bottom floor of this heap and was the still reigning winner of Most Punchable face, nearly shoved that face through the bars of Georgia’s cell. “Miss Mogran, I think these fellows won’t be bothering you anytime soon.”

Georgia examined the man that her good, loyal boys had sent for her. Not for the first time ever, and certainly not to be the last time that night, she wanted to wince at how he spoke.  _ Engineer’s balls, he sounds like the least sincere outlaw there’s ever been.  _ Like he was a Byzantium lordling pretending to be a highwayman. 

But at the moment, even, in her very distinct way,  _ violently enthusiastic _ Georgia Mogran was happy to see this damn fool. She smiled at him; one of those grins that she knew made all the blood freeze in someone’s veins, more than likely made all the worse by the still drying blood that streaked her face, then tossed down the still smoldering butt of what was supposed to be her last cigarette. “What took you so long?”

Nelson winced, terror filling his face as if he fully expected Georgia to lunge through the bars of her cell, throttle him good for making her wait. Some other night, that might have been what she was fixing to do to him.

But tonight was a rarity. 

Stomping the cherry out of her butt with more zealous force than needed, Georgia sighed and cricked her neck and shoulders, grunting with pleasure at the audible  _ crack _ as she twisted her head. “Was starting to get tired. Here I was, hopin’ I could get to finish tonight’s work in time for a nap before I give Malin a long overdue  _ hello _ .”

The man pulled the keys out of his pocket, fumbling with them before he managed to get her cell unlocked. She didn’t imagine that Nelson was much used to getting his hands dirty in schemes any longer than something small fry. It was a surprise that he’d managed to deal with the guards to begin with, even after he’d undoubtedly snuck up on them, men who never expected to get hit in the head by one of their own. Or, _ supposedly _ one of their own.

As he swung the door open, giving her an ostentatious and unwanted, deep bow, Georgia walked out and past him, reaching back to snatch the keys from his hand, eliciting a surprised yelp as she did it. “Come on now, we gotta do this quick, ain’t no telling what that paranoid bitch set up in case of situations like this.”

As Georgia undid the locks for the other cells, her boys watching their queen work her magic in silence, it seemed that Nelson found his voice again as he let out a totally unbelievable laugh. “Kat,  _ Katherine _ ? No, she doesn’t know anything about us.” he paused before he added, “Or how many of us there are.”

As she swung the last door open, giving a hearty hug and pat on the back to a grateful fellow Fallbrook Liberator, Georgia stopped and looked at Nelson. “Now, how many of us are there in town?”

Nelson grinned, stuffing his thumbs into the pockets of his trousers, his chest puffed out like he was, truly, some fucking dandy. “Why, there’s more of us Sprats in town than Katherine could ever imagine.”

Georgia groaned, having to fight back the sudden and hard urge to not run over and deck this man, her own liberator even though he was, in the back of the head. “You and them fuckin’ vermin, it never ends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary was from you know what from Iggy Pop, it's kind of the chapter title. 
> 
> Hey there, we're a day early (or, at least, I WAS until I ended up making some re-writes), and I guess this is going to be normal from now on. For the FORESEEABLE future, because my hours at work have drastically changed. For the foreseeable future I'm probably posting on Sundays. Bleh. Next order of business--hey, noticed how the rating changed. I mean, it was probably ALWAYS rated E, it's not as if I picked the rating M because it looked correct and just thought that "E" meant E for everyone because I grew up on videogames in the US, that would be stupid, who would even DO that...
> 
> Had a hard weekend as I've been revising my original novel, and, hey, turns out that realizing a whole new aspect of a story can translate to at least one whole new chapter and having to comb through work you've... already... re-written... to see if you need to lay down groundwork before we can even get into chapters that you haven't re-written already. I just... I swear to sweet satan, if this novel doesn't work out...
> 
> I'm tired. I hope some of you appreciate rimming followed by plot.


	32. 31: Bad Luck Women

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the chickens come home to roost--or whatever outdated, old Earth analogy fits.

As the door to the bungalow slid open, Neena mimed for Max to lead the way. For the first time in a long time, Neena felt at least a little guilty to be preoccupied with staring at his ass. Where the night before had felt wonderful, fulfilling on a deep level that Neena knew Max had felt as well, the morning after proved to be more than a bit harder to deal with.

_ The Unreliable’s  _ Counselor was, as always, hard to read, but they thought they could sense a hesitation when he looked at Neena as they got dressed. The two were quieter than they normally were, near-silent as they tucked their clothes into their trousers. Their body had a telltale soreness to it, and unlike their first time together, Neena could recall, with immediate, searing intensity, the particulars of what they had indulged in with each other as soon as they had woken up. Despite that time they had shared one of the few words they shared that morning, actually, was when Neena found the vestments that Max had torn off of himself the night before. 

At first they tried to awkwardly gesture with the clothes, then when that didn’t get any reasonable response from the man who was just staring at them, more than a little like a canid caught in headlights, Neena sighed. “Do you want to keep these?”

There was a flash of something in his eyes—a fire that Neena had not seen since the night before—as Max nodded, clearing his throat as he defeated the overbright quality his eyes had. “Sure, why not? Variety is the spice of life.”

The thought had crossed their mind. Pin Max to the bed before they had a chance to leave here, have another go. Their body was willing, sure, but their mental state wasn’t fully there. Although it had felt like they hadn’t gotten  _ all that  _ drunk the night before, the throbbing, radiating hangover seemed to suggest otherwise. It felt like at any moment Neena might lose control and vomit. Last night they didn’t have Max this time to provide them with the hangover aid to make sure they could get up and going the morning after, unlike their previous time drinking.

And then there was the other reason for why Neena wasn’t too eager to make eye contact with him, still.  _ I love you. _

Neena wasn’t in the right mind to think it all over; they longed first to be back on their ship, on  _ their  _ ship, with  _ their  _ crew, and a whole system to choose from where to go next. Hangover Aid and then, once their stomach didn’t curdle at the thought, whatever crystalline coffee mix they had on hand in the kitchen.

Oh, how just the thought of coffee in the future was a comfort to the Captain of  _ The Unreliable. _

With the light of the sun on them, though, Neena quickly realized that things were not about to be as simple as they would have liked.

Neena had thought that they had woken up early enough, but the sight—of everyone standing outside, most of whom were looking right at them—told Neena that there was not going to be any meds in their very near future. That, and a chance to brush the aftertaste of their sins and poor decisions out of their mouth.

It was Parvati who found them in the small crowd, running up to greet them as she so often did. “Captain—” She plainly saw him; and even out of those vestments, which he kept, hung over one of his arms, the mechanic couldn’t have missed Max. Still, her eyes widened at the sight of him as whatever she was about to say stuck in her throat before she asked, “Mr.  _ DeSoto _ ?”

Max spoke up, his voice, while on the rough side, still unbelievably smooth. “Yes, the Captain—they were quite drunk, I wanted to take them somewhere close for the night, where they could sleep off the—” 

For once—finally—sick of all of the lies and false fronts, Neena almost pushed the young woman aside, walking past her, grunting as they felt their stomach revolt. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” Yuck, their mouth tasted like unwashed assholes.

They might have already shown more than their roughest sides to the man they had walked out of the cabin with already, but Neena still didn’t relish the thought of having him smell the stink cloud they emitted every time they talked.

They walked away from their two crew members, searching for the quickest path to their ship. Neena made it halfway through the crowd before they were stopped. This time it wasn’t from some inquiring member of  _ The Unreliable.  _

Catherine looked at the ragged Captain, a smile gleaming in a way that struck Neena as surprisingly ominous. In spite of their sluggish brain, Neena realized that they had only ever seen that look on her face when Neena had given her the keys to the Boarst factory. 

" _ Castillo _ ! Late riser, eh?” Something  _ almost  _ resembling normal, human mirth warmed in her eyes as she leaned over and elbowed Neena in the chest. “Scoundrel, take it from you to show SubLight a spectacle even we’ve never seen before.” Neena grunted and winced, clutching their stomach as the touch overexcited their already sensitive stomach. Whether or not Catherine saw the desperate movement in them—or cared—she followed it up with laughing. “Y’know, we all saw the way you and that ex-holy man were carrying on. I said to myself: there’s either a really lucky couple, or something  _ real _ unfortunate that’s begging to happen.”

Instead of humoring her, Neena drew their face down, avoiding the glare of the overbright sun above them like the eyes of a disapproving authority figure. “Fan- _ tastic _ . Can I just—”

Catherine reached over, pulling Neena into an embrace that felt alien to them. “Oh, thought you said you were gonna stick around to watch the fireworks.” She winked; another off-puttingly un-normal sight on her face. “I was saving a seat of honor next to me, actually. You might be close enough to catch a little brain matter.”

Carefully, Neena peeled themselves loose from the grasp of the queen of Fallbrook, making sure that they had a warm, pleasant-enough smile on their face. “Ah, I couldn’t. We have a meeting with a client, and we’re already gonna be late to it as it is, you know how it goes…”

Catherine’s face dropped the pleasantness—the mask—off, revealing cold eyes and a hard edifice beneath that shook even the hardened Neena to the core. Softly, but still somehow able to be heard beneath the din of the voices of people who had come out to celebrate, she said, “You never mentioned needing to be somewhere in the morning. Sounds an awful lot like some kind of an excuse.”

Hungover was not the best state for Neena to be in when dealing with an at least practical sociopath. Raising their hands up in defeat, Neena backed away, smiling broadly at the woman as their stomach surely let out a loud shriek in warning. “No, no, Catherine, I wouldn’t offend you by lying like this.”

The woman looked unphased, crossing her arms over her chest. Since the moment Neena had met her, they knew, in the same way that they had known that Gladys was infinitely more than just some sweet old lady, that Catherine was a proper Halcyon  _ broad _ . And she was definitely much more dangerous than any male counterpart that Neena could have put her up against. 

Another Mantiqueen that Neena knew they needed to stay more than a few steps ahead of at any given time, if they cherished their limbs.

And then she laughed. 

Stunned, Neena watched as the true face of Catherine Malin disappeared completely. When she finished, the head of Fallbrook motioned to them, wiping a tear that had formed in the corner of one of her eyes, smiling. “Holy—oh, if you could have seen your face.” Shaking her head, Catherine let out a slight, rusty-sounding giggle. “Look, I get it. I’m a woman of business myself. Places to be, people to burn; alright.” She sighed before she added, “Maybe the thought of an execution makes you squeamish, I get it.” Before Neena could object, Catherine motioned through the crowd, to the landing pad and to the ship. “Let me walk you to the ship. I think this is all going to be the last we see of each other for a while. For both of our sakes.”

As Neena let the head of Fallbrook walk them through the crowd, still shocked at the sudden reprieve from whatever it was that making the decision to offend Catherine would have led to, Neena couldn’t help but take their situation in. The morning after they had been saved from having their ship taken over by raving idiots, with the ache of all of the excesses they had indulged in still affecting them, Neena was so close to finally taking off from Fallbrook, from Monarch. 

Of course, all around them now there was a crowd of anybody who wanted to see a series of executions, making Fallbrook look the most alive than it had been in the time that Neena had come here. 

Jesus, did they already really have out of towners here this quickly, all to see some executions?

As they parted their way through the crowd, Neena saw the first welcoming sight since they had come outside. Felix and Ellie stood in front of the ship. As happy as Neena was to see them, they were relieved to know that, soon, they would have some privacy to deal with the hot, queasy ache that felt like it filled them. 

Felix greeted them, an obvious relief and excitement reflecting on his face as he nearly ran to both his ship’s Captain and to the head of Fallbrook. Either he had gotten some much-desired Hangover Aid, or he had not been near as wasted as he had seemed the night before. “We’ve been waiting! We stickin’ around for the show?”

Neena had to actively fight to not let their distaste show on their face. “Actually—” they saw the others, motioned for them to come closer. “If it’s all the same to everyone else, I think we should get going, yeah?”

Ellie, who kept her head ducked, looked up at Neena then, the sarcasm written on her face before she had to say anything. “Shouldn’t we ask the good  _ counselor  _ if he has an opinion first?”

Neena, struck between surprise and the need to tell the woman to mind her own fucking business, was interrupted as the man in question re-appeared, with Parvati at his side. He greeted everyone. If Max was in the least bit hungover, he carried it far better even than the resident party animal. Or, at least, the once resident partier.

As if guessing what Neena had said, Max clapped his hands together and smiled at the rest of the crew. “I think it’s time we leave Monarch.” He cast a quick glance over at Catherine, and, re-thinking it, added, “For now.”

Catherine chuckled, drawing her arms across her chest as she looked from Neena to Max, a strangely meaningful look in her eyes. “Yeah, not forever. I think some time apart might lead to some… interesting complications. I don’t want to be left out of the loop. Just—I think some time apart would be good for all of us. And it’d keep all of us from being on the wrong side of Lilya’s shit list.”

Neena nodded, then sighed, relieved to be moments away from getting a lungful of the ship’s recycled air to clear out the sulfur. “Well, if you say so—”

The words were taken from them by the unmistakable feel, of someone shoving the butt of a rifle into the small of their back, sending them falling down to the ground. By the time Neena could spin around, struggling to sit up from where they had been thrown to the ground, the world had changed around them. 

The energy of the crowd, previously jubilant with a macabre excitement, had now erupted into a panic, their ears filled with the sound of screaming as people fled—thankfully, not towards Neena, but away, down the broken path that led out of town. At least,  _ some _ of the people weren’t fleeing. The ones who remained were the ones who were crowding around them, guns pointed at everyone assembled. Including, Neena noticed as soon as the shock started to wear off,  _ Catherine _ .

Neena’s mouth moved to formulate some sort of a quip, meant to hide their fear and sense of having lost control when Catherine beat them to it. “Well, alright then. Any a’ you boys want to tell mama what, exactly,  _ this _ is doin’ wrong?”

It was a vaguely familiar voice that answered, booming and heavy with a uniquely Monarch goon twang, in the form of a veritable mountain of a woman who cleared her way through the press of people running past, as though she were a huge boulder in a stream. “Katie Cat. Now,  _ there’s  _ some of that off-Monarch wit you’re known for.” She grinned— _ Jesus _ , that was a jack-o’-lantern grin, if there ever was one—and she pounded her expansive chest with a huge, meaty fist. “I do gotta thank you and that wit a’ yours, though. If you’d done an’ given me and my Highway Boys the old ten gun salute last night, none a’ this’d be happening. Not like any of us are the  _ best _ at plannin’ ahead, but—”

Catherine snapped, looking like she was moments from lunging at the much larger woman. “C’mon. You and me, just knives, we’ll see how well you do against my  _ smart mouth  _ with none of your soon-to-be-dead friends here to protect you.” She cocked her head to the side, a grin, this one obviously meant to be cold, horrible, spreading across her face. “Or have you forgotten what happened the last time?”

_ The last time? She fought THIS woman, hand to hand, and won?  _ In spite of the situation, the sheer barbarism of all of it, Neena was shook by how much added respect they felt for the apparent queen of this hive of borderline, well, highwaymen.

The other woman—Georgia—flinched, the muscles in her face growing taut, like it was being pulled back. “Don’t need to worry your weak little muscles about that none, Katie Cat, we’re not gonna do this with shows of strength.” The look that had filled her face before disappeared, replaced with that previous grin. “‘anything, I’m here to drag Fallbrook, hell, SubLight, into the future, kicking and screaming.”

“Ah, so, let me get this straight.” Catherine pretended to look thoughtful before she added, “you got beat, like a canid what wandered into camp, now you’re telling me that the rules you agreed to when you contested Lilya Hagen’s decree of who was going to run the town—and were exiled for it— don’t mean  _ nothing _ . And now,” her voice bubbled into a laugh, and the woman almost doubled over, as hiccups of laughter came out before he looked up. “ _ you:  _ the absolute last pick for running a, let’s all face it, folks; bad front for our Monarch-based criminal dealings, think you’re going to get into the good graces of Lilya by taking her town over. Oh, and, let’s not stop there,” she held her hands out. “you think you have something more meaningful to offer SubLight, as a whole, than being a two-bit human shakedown automaton?”

The shade, the sheer spiciness of Catherine, even seemingly cornered, was so strong that Neena thought they had gotten a second hand burn from it. Looking back at the recipient, however, showed a woman who was either unphased by it, or was used to the head of Fallbrook’s extremely cutting verbal abuse.

Georgia just crossed her arms and flicked her hand at them, said, “Yes, bitch, I’m here to do all of that and more. Not that you’ll be alive to experience it. I think we can both agree that waiting for an execution in a town like this is fucking  _ dumb,  _ so you’ll get a few hours to think about how you could learn some manners,” she waved dismissively at Neena and the crew of  _ The Unreliable _ before sniffing and looking at some of her assembled goons—some of which, Neena realized, made up some of the supposedly loyal SubLight employees who were to answer to Catherine. “take ‘em to the prison so we can get this thing bumpin’.”

As the goons descended on them Neena found their voice as their first thought, what used to be their own livelihood, proved transformed as they choked out, “My crew, the people aboard  _ The Unreliable,  _ have nothing to do with SubLight business! Let them go, take me if you have—”

Georgia shot her an angry glare, more, surely, than she had even shown Catherine thus far, and said, “Save the hero shit for some other day, some other place. This’ Fallbrook, and pretty soon everyone’s gonna have to do what I say or get a visit, personally, from me.” When Neena opened their mouth to continue to at least try to plead with her, the woman shushed them, a patronizing smirk on her face. “I know, I know, trust me, been where you are, now. Only, this time I’d say you backed the wrong bitch. And it doesn’t get much better from here.”

There were too many of them and all of their weapons, as always, were holstered at their side. With no other choice, Neena looked down at their feet, wondering how this could have happened when they had been close; so, so damn  _ close,  _ to not being here when SubLight went through a major change in regime. But Neena did finally lift their head, turning to look at their crew members’ stricken, disbelieving face. The calmest edifice they saw belonged to none other than the man they had spent the night with.

He was looking straight at them, only his eyes showing strong emotion, bright.

* * *

One surefire way to get hit by Catherine; pointing out how ironic it was to be in the very jail that the now-deposed queen had kept the usurpers in. So Neena decided, instead, to try to keep their crew members calm, almost through instinct that they surely had not possessed half a year earlier. When it had gotten  _ too _ quiet, Neena had found their attention drawn to the cigarette butt in their cell. Wondered who the person had been that had smoked it and left it here, if they were now having free reign of the town.

Maybe even rifling through their stash of valuables on the ship.

Everyone, kept to two in old-school jail cells, complete with metal bars, had gotten over their initial reactions some time ago. Anger, reasoning, struggling, negotiation; now there was only the looming shadow of acceptance to come.

One that Neena sure as shit was not about to face down, even if only outwardly, for the good of their poor crew members. 

“There’s always a way. We’ve worked together and gotten out of worse than this.”

The one person who had not at least contributed to the verbal diarrhea in the room was the woman that Neena had been shoved into a cell with. The sound of her quiet voice almost made Neena jump in shock from it as Catherine spoke. “Oh, you’ve  _ worked your way _ out of situations worse than this? Hon, if  _ me _ , the devil herself is in a jail cell, things can’t  _ get _ any worse. We can’t be too far from everything just falling apart.” 

Turning to look at her, Neena saw how Catherine, who had been quietly leaning back against the back wall with her foot resting against it, stared at them with unvarnished disgust.

It wasn’t Neena who spoke up. Ellie countered, “Oh? So says you. How do you know what we’ve gotten up to?”

Catherine—slowly—took her direct, burning gaze off of Neena, turning it onto the younger woman, the doctor who was leaning with her hands gathered through the bars of her cell. With a sneer, she said, “I heard plenty ‘bout your little  _ adventures.  _ You folk think you can just skate through these little problems you cause, without any retribution?” She shook her head, returning her glare to the Captain of the ship that had brought this problem here in the first place. “Only joy I’m gonna get from all of this: knowing you assholes are gonna get what you deserve for making this happen, for your hand in killing some of my men, these people who trusted me.”

Parvati spoke up, her voice almost shrill. She had been previously crying, her cellmate Felix had been trying to comfort her even as he sounded often like he was on the verge of his own tears. “We haven’t done anything to you! How could you say that to us? We thought—just last night, you said, you said we was—we were the  _ heroes _ of Fallbrook.”

Neena was surprised that Catherine had even let the woman finish. Maybe Neena was imagining it, but Catherine’s gaze seemed to soften—just a bit. “I feel for you, I really do. But ignorance isn’t good enough. What kinda outlaw town would this be, if we ran by taking peoples’  _ intentions  _ as some excuse?” Again, she turned her gaze directly onto Neena. “Lilya don’t give one fuck about intentions, when it leads to a source of her income getting set on fire.” She shook her head. “Not that it’s gonna matter much, in a minute. Whoever’s left standing is who gets the big, greasy pot. We run by the law of the jungle out here.”

Neena finally unlocked their gaze from hers, needing to hide their immediate reaction, how much Catherine’s words disturbed them. As they walked from one end of the cell to the next—a five step walk that was very quick to finish, indeed—a voice that Neena heard little of, unless he was trying to calm someone down, spoke up, from the cell next to the one Neena shared with Catherine.

“Your hair’s really kind of wild right now.” Neena turned, looked at Max. He had shoved his hands out of the bars, was motioning, beckoning for them to come to him. “Please. Let me fix it for you.”

Neena had to suppress a gallows laugh that wanted to break free from them. “Love, I don’t think my first worry here’s my  _ hair.” _

He had grown strangely still, and distraught, it took Neena a long moment before they realized what they had said. Aloud.

Coughing, Max looked away, his face growing ever so slightly redder. “Captain, we’re going to have the most important moment in our life very soon, apparently. You’re going to be our voice, our face. And, even if it’s just me, I don’t want our face to be a mess.”

That got a laugh from Neena. Might not have gotten one from them normally, but so desperate for some levity, they laughed at that. “Okay, sure.” Before they could re-think it, decide that letting everyone in the room watch as Max neatened their hair was a damn fine way to keep the rumors and allegations about them alive, Neena walked over to their ship’s Counselor and, sighing, turned around before they could get caught by how they were staring in those deep green eyes. 

As Neena felt him stroking his rough hands through their hair, pulling the remnants of the knot-filled mess loose so gently he never caused them pain, they looked up thoughtlessly. Discovered that everyone in the room was looking, right at them.

Neena’s immediate reaction, to pull loose and try to play it off, putting distance between them and the man they were already trying to figure out where in the hell they stood with, was fought off with a single thought.  _ Who the fuck even cares anymore? _

If they were going to be killed, why live under any more pretense?

So Neena stared at those who stared back at them; even, when Max softly told them to turn their head, turned so they were staring into Catherine’s eyes. The woman wasn’t giving them a death stare for once. Instead, she looked like she was trying to read something in a different language, trying to comprehend something foreign to her. 

Love in the absolute wild.

Eventually though, Neena knew they might be shameless, but they were not immune to being stared at like some attraction. Looking down at their hands, Neena cleared their throat. “You’re right. Might as well look better than that woman we brought here.”

Max surprised Neena by tenderly raking his rough fingers through their scalp, sending a shudder through Neena’s body from the touch, then saying, “I never said we were a lost cause. I just think you ought to feel and look your best for—"

Whatever he was about to say was interrupted by someone coming up the stairs. It was none other than Nelson  _ fucking _ Mayson. If there was anything to be relieved about with his sudden appearance, it was the sureness that he proved to be a more appealing target for the very angry ex-head of Fallbrook.

And Catherine was the one who greeted the man, who flinched as soon as she spoke out. “ _ You useless little sprat _ . I knew you were only looking for the best host to attach yourself to.” Nelson feigned not being able to hear Catherine, and a quick look at the woman’s face revealed that she was overcome with rage. “You  _ little—I _ vouched for you, everyone in town thinks you’re a creep and a little coward.” She sniffed, her eyes dragging up his body like she were appraising junk that had been thrown to her. “So what, now you’re here to take me out to speak to the new head of this portion of SubLight Industries?”

Nelson spoke up for the first time, holding his hands on either of the lapels of his shabby sport coat. “Well, obviously, not  _ everyone  _ in town mistrusts me, although, maybe you ought’ve. Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, I am here to take someone to meet with Ms. Mogran—”

Catherine spoke up, her voice hard, biting. “And it’ll keep being miss, because no one would ever touch her with a ten-foot goddamn pole.”

Nelson looked like he was fighting back a chuckle, then he said, “Get a good joke out while you can, I ‘spose. But I am not taking _ you _ .”

Neena froze, felt like their whole being had been thrown into a pit. They had had the feeling that it would fall on them to save them, if there  _ was _ a way to save them. Aware that their hair was half-bound by the man whose hands were still embedded in their hair, Neena tried to stand up to their short, full height and look, somehow, dignified. “So, what does she want to talk about?”

Nelson made a faux double-take, then laughed. “She doesn’t want to talk to  _ you _ , either. She’s gonna figure out the key to that ship o’ yours, soon. She has a more… personal request in mind.” And he walked past Neena’s cell. Stood in front of Max and Ellie’s. “You, sir, have quite a ways with the ladies.”

Max spoke up, still not removing his hands from Neena’s hair. “I’ve met the woman, and I must side with Catherine with saying that Georgia Mogran is  _ no _ lady.”

_ Funny,  _ Neena couldn’t help but think,  _ making sure he knew I wasn’t some lady was one of the first things I ever drilled into Max’s head. _

Nelson laughed, then caught himself, looking angrily at Max. “Hey, if you want to be killed before everyone else, or—hmm, how does torture sound?—you can keep that talk.”

As he turned the key in the door, Max finally released his hold on their hair. 

Neena, turning to look at Nelson, said, “How’s that old black eye I gave you?”

Nelson turned to look at them, a smugness in him that demanded immediate retribution that Neena could not give. “As you can see, I’ve recovered well from your sucker punches.”

As he swung the door open, Max read Neena’s mind with unerring accuracy. The man swung his arm back—seemed to swing half of his body back—and flung, fist first, for the man’s face.

The only other person who could have punched him in the face on their crew that could have hurt as much as Nelson must have been feeling then was SAM.

Chaos erupted, as everyone in the cells screamed and Ellie joined Max, the both of whom commenced pummeling the would-be jailer. The feeling, that they had managed to escape, came quickly. Only to be immediately squashed. 

As the SubLight dissenters came running upstairs, returning peace with just a jab of their rifles at the occupants of the cells, Neena felt like melting onto the floor in agony. 

The only joy Neena felt, watching as Nelson hastily ordered the thugs to take a staggering Max out, was seeing the huge, purpling bruises on not just the horrible man’s eye, but appeared in his swelling chin and cheek. As he trailed after the rest, though, it seemed like he couldn’t resist trying to assert himself on them one last time.

“What the hell do you  _ dead people _ think you’re looking at?”

Ellie answered that, now alone in her cell. “I don’t know, but I think you look a lot closer to all those fucking sprats than you do a man.”

That prompted what had to be the first laugh Neena had heard all morning from Catherine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder if this chapter was like a splash of cold water after the last. I kind of hope it was! 
> 
> I'm a little bit... well, my thoughts are on my original story at the moment. I had a catastrophic accident last night with the Scrivener version of my story (the one I should not have been working off primarily anyway) and now I have to work something out. Honestly, if I wasn't already treating this process as a process of learning how I'm supposed to do this, I might have had a nervous breakdown over this. Right now I've decided to back off of using Scrivener, which was already making the process way slower than it needed to go, and focus on energies on working in text documents and with my airtable system I have already set up that does the work beautifully and I can sync across computers. If I had only bitten the bullet and done this earlier, I wouldn't have lost what work I have, but I am not going to be angry or sad about it. I already have the whole thing internalized and I was planning on going through my old work again, so if anything I'm just going to treat this as a fresh start, one that will let me make progress faster than I did before.
> 
> I wanted to thank MirkwoodBabe and tencenturymind for their kind comments they made in the earlier chapters. Remembering that people follow my writing are a major force that keep me moving forward, even in troubling days like this.


	33. 32: Big Trouble in Little SubLight

Forced outside of the once-Drygoods-store-turned-prison, Max discovered that there was a quiet to the once chaotic Fallbrook that he had never experienced before. Although his preference for a vacation destination was more along the lines of how quiet it was in the street outside, this level of stillness in a den of iniquity felt unnatural. Disconcerting; it felt like the quiet that had been in Adelaide’s failed Eden after its humming heart had been ripped out.

If he was in danger of sliding into his own thoughts and reflections Nelson made sure to stop that from happening with his usual level of intelligence and charm. The man snarled, his voice altered by the damage that Max had, hopefully, permanently done to his nose and mouth. “You  _ wait _ . You won’t get a chance to sucker punch me again. If Miss Mogran didn’t want to talk to you personally, why, I’da—”

So far from caring at this point in the aftermath of fresh adrenaline and genuine, overwhelming annoyance from  _ still _ being trapped in SubLight business, Max let Nelson have more than a taste of his  _ violent enthusiasm _ . “Oh, you’d do  _ what?  _ Don’t have a problem hitting a man in cuffs, do you?” He motioned roughly with the binds that strussed his wrists together, making the goon that was trying to keep close to him struggle to regain a hold onto Max, slamming his hands down with more force than was needed. “I’d still be standing on top of you in a fight like this, we both know that much to be true.” There was no hyperbole here; Max knew he would win in any fight with the fool.

Nelson let out a loud, obnoxious laugh, stopping in his tracks as he made a show of looking Max up and down. “ _ You  _ think you can take me in a fair fight?”

Max felt his mouth moving into a far too familiar sneer. “No, I am saying that even with wrists tied, I could still break you over my knee.”

Nelson’s lips twitched underneath the weight of that ridiculous mustache. “You’re  _ old _ , old man. Can’t do nothin' to me, especially when we’re in my town, with my people.” He motioned, laughably, to the empty, quiet street.

“So what you’re saying is, I am older than you and you can overpower me with your companions. While I'm tied up.”

He was almost surprised when Nelson threw his arms out, a proud expression on his rapidly blood-mottling face. “I didn’t stutter, old man.”

“Tell me, Have you ever, in your life, gotten into, and won, an honest fight against someone who’s played Tossball for more than three decades?”

“Sure just sounds like you keep saying that you’re old.” He motioned to the goons. “Come on, drag him if you have to, let’s get him to Georgia’.”

The goon holding Max managed to surprise him when he glared at Nelson, then barked at him, “Law damn it, tell me what to do  _ one more time,  _ Mayson, and I’m fixing to let this guy finish rearrangin’ your face.”

Max added, “Yes, please, let me finish the job on him. If I win, let me go.”

Nelson held his hands out, terror starting to fill his eyes—what portion of his eyes were visible, behind the chimpmunk swelling that was starting to distort his face. “Hey, hey—I know I’m not the strongest man,” he sniffed, reaching down in that annoying way of his to grab at the lapels of his sports coat. “I  _ could _ take an old man like you, but I know when I’ve been beat once, and ‘sides, I’m a businessman. Georgia Mogran is just the right kind of person to pivot us into the right direction for once. And right now, she wants  _ you. _ ”

Max barely stopped the urge, to throw his head back and groan at that refrain that he had heard from Catherine not too long ago.  _ These people are OBSESSED with doing everything for money or prestige.  _ Had he really been like this himself, once upon a time?

Seemingly unaware of how unimpressed—and distracted—Max was, Nelson turned around to start walking, the goons grumbling with barely contained annoyance of their own. They were taking him to the very place where Catherine’s office used to be. Now, he supposed, it was just the room belonging to the impossibly unprofessional thug that he had dealt with the day before. The kind of woman who made Catherine look, dare he say it,  _ professional _ .

Pulled inside, Max almost missed the sight of Georgia. In spite of the height and frame of the woman in question, the desk that had never in and of itself been something neat or orderly was now piled high with what Max figured was loot. When he finally saw her, she was behind the barrier formed from the mountain of stacked loot, sat in a chair that looked like it was about to collapse under her bulk at any moment. Frowning as she read something on paper. 

To his surprise, Max realized that a pair of reading glasses were perched on her heavy bulb of a nose. It was quite a change for the woman who had violently shoved her way into their lives. 

When she became aware that they had entered, Georgia looked at all of them with surprisingly professional coolness for someone who had so recently been waiting for her own execution. “Good. Bring him in, then all a you clear out.”

Nelson spoke up, his voice carrying a shriller note than normal, even with the leaden quality from his injuries. “M-miss Mogran, I sustained injuries bringing him in, I was hoping—”

Georgia had been staring at him as he babbled, then she cut him off, her heavy voice descending on him like some kind of apex predator. “Nelson, shut your fucking goddamn mouth. If I want to hear an asshole talk, I’ll just fart.”  _ Nothing but class with this woman, and something like that, but with the “cl” taken out.  _

Once that seemed to do the job of quieting him, Georgia turned to Max, her dark eyes sweeping over him. She sighed, motioning him to come forward. When Max, with no small degree of hesitation, started to walk, he was annoyed to realize that the goons who had dragged him in had meant to keep on dragging him. Max had no choice but to give into the men who pulled him by his upper arms. Somewhere between the doorway and past the desk, he lost whatever small camaraderie he felt he shared with these men on the topic of their shared hatred of Nelson Mayson. When they let him go so that he was now standing no more than three feet from the woman who had started all of this trouble, Georgia began to examine him. 

It didn’t hit Max at first, trying to find anything he could possibly think of to tell her. Max realized that at the moment, he was not much more than something like livestock to be examined, appraised by her.

But for what goal?

Georgia cleared her throat, sitting up further, her eyes distorted by the lenses of her reading glasses. She motioned for the men, waving them off. “Leave me alone with him, I’ll let ya know if I need anything else.”

Nelson cried out, walking until he was standing alongside the goons. “B-but, I brought this man to you, broke you out of jail—”

Georgia, who had not stopped staring Max down from the moment he had been tramped up to her, seemed to grow completely still in an instant. She interrupted Nelson, her voice risen in an honestly disturbing note of anger. “Why in the  _ fuck  _ is there a bruise on his face?”

She turned to look at the pitiful man, dead in the eye as she waited for a response. Nelson, clearing his throat, said, “W-well, he was  _ uncooperative _ in getting out of his cell, and he fought me,  _ prompting _ me to—”

Georgia rose her hand up, cutting him off mid sentence. If looks could kill, Nelson would have been a dead man twice over. “I don’t care if Max hit you—I would care if he had pulled a  _ knife  _ on you; no one touches him more than to move him when I say so, else  _ I  _ hit  _ you _ . You’re not comin' back from that.” As if to illustrate her point, Georgia brought her massive, scarred hand up, curling it into a fist before she rested it on her upper thigh. “Are we clear as crystal, boy?”

Nelson’s eyes looked, even beneath all of the bruising that was making him swell, large and terrified. He ducked his head, then thankfully ran out of the room.

When Georgia told the other goons, “You guys, follow him,” Max realized that he wasn’t exactly excited to be completely bereft of anyone else to act as a buffer with this woman. Still, he kept his chin held up high, mentally trying to find an expression to fit his face that didn’t scream  _ kill me where I stand,  _ but, almost more importantly,  _ I’m not completely terrified by the sure reality of my impending death. _

He settled on a near scowl.

As the door closed behind the last goon, Georgia did something unexpected. She smiled at Max, this one not feeling, maybe for once, like it was meant to intimidate. She stood up, nearly towering over him, holding her arms out in what was for a hug.

“Long time no see,” she drawled out. “Come here so I can get a close look at ya.”

Against what Max supposed was his better instincts, he remained where he stood, at first staring at the new head of Fallbrook, too stunned to think of what to say. Finally, he said, “I didn’t realize we  _ had _ a reason to meet again.”

That grin weakened slightly on her face as she took off her glasses, sitting them on the cabinet that she had been partially leaned against. “Well, I was s'posed to get killed 'bout two hours back, so… surprise!” She laughed. There was something that could have been, on someone else, sincere and endearing in that expression on her face. For a split second—just a moment—Max felt sorry for her. 

“Can you let us go? We had nothing to do with what’s happened between you, Catherine, and Lilya. Let me and the rest of the crew go—”

She interrupted, her voice smoothed so that she only sounded like broken glass sliding over fabric. “So you’re  _ not _ the Captain of that ship, are ya?” When Max, reluctantly, nodded—fully expecting her to fly into a rage and perhaps throttle him—instead, Georgia said, “Y’know, out here, we’re all used to lyin’ to each other, doin’ what we can to survive. Just—I thought, this time, when a handsome fella come down to a shitpit like this, I can trust  _ him _ , can’t I? Like,” she scoffed, and Max saw it in her eyes; the genuine hurt. “Is it too much to expect someone to tell the Law-damn truth for  _ once _ ?” She shook her head, then added, “Your Captain—that that slender thing, the stray cat?” When Max again nodded, he couldn’t help but notice the hard note in her voice as she spoke next. “Same one you spent the night with?”

There was no point in lying here. “That’s right.”

“You fucked her?”

Max felt the scoff come out of him before he could even wonder if it was a wise choice of a sound to make in response. “ _ Their  _ relationship with me is a closed book." He realized that he wasn't being the affable guy who was giving any reason for Georgia to not just march all of his crewmates—friends—out into the street to make do on her threat of executing them all. Quickly, Max added, "I would love to talk to you about anything else you'd want—"

Georgia grabbed onto his chin before he realized she had come up to him, moving at an almost terrifying speed that ran opposite to her large frame. Jerking his face up so that she could look directly into his eyes, Georgia softly said, “This is all I want to talk about with you. Me, you—and what the hell that lil' gutter-snipe means to you.” Before Max could regain his wits—say anything to defend himself, she added, “We all know you fucked that one. Hard to miss, I heard; you two lockin’ lips outside of the bar, then the both a you came out of that damn bungalow together. What I want to know is—are they gonna make a problem for me an’ you, or do I have your full cooperation going forward?”

His hands, bound, and standing before a person like this, left Max feeling more vulnerable than he ever had in almost all of his memory. Max swallowed a hard ball that had formed at the base of his throat, asked, “For _ what _ ?”

Georgia grinned, her breath blowing directly on Max, making him want to fall over. “You n’ me, we’re gonna rule Fallbrook, then we’re gonna get all a’ Monarch.”

Max wasn’t able to hide what was likely horror from his face, or stop himself from talking without a filter. “Why would I want to do that with you?”

She seemed to catch onto the connotation of what he meant, as he blurted it out. Her smile stopped, dropping into a bulldog-like scowl as she released her grip on his chin. “Because, either you’re here, with me, or Imma kill you.”

“Why me?” Why not someone—anyone—else?

Georgia took a step back, her eyes bright with what should have been terrifying wrath, if not for how outraged Max was starting to feel himself. “You lied to me ‘bout bein’ the Captain of that ship.” She pointed to the desk that had been piled high with loot. Max turned to look at it, saw the mountain of random things tossed on top of it. When he turned to look back at her, Georgia rolled her eyes, almost pushing him aside as she walked to it, reaching underneath part of it, returning with her prize in hand. Rumpled blue-purple fabric.

Somehow, Max knew that this reveal wasn’t a good one, and he felt a bitter understanding that perhaps his past, signified by that stupid get-up, would always be fated to come back to haunt him. 

“Look familiar?”

Still, he tried to look unphased, affixing his best asshole Vicar expression on his face as he looked at it, then up at Georgia like it wasn’t anything to him, shrugging. “What’s  _ that _ ?”

Georgia’s eyes seemed to grow bright with anger, and even though she was only holding onto a handful of Max’s old vestments, he felt the sudden need to duck, as though she were about to hit him with something. “You lied 'bout who you were, too.” She brought it up to her face—surely more than in need of a launder, from its night before—and sniffed, making Max cringe before he had a chance to censor himself. 

If he previously thought he was at a loss for words, Max discovered that he could hardly finish a thought then, thinking of what he could say. He stared at the woman, then at his old vestments in quick succession, like he was caught in some kind of a horrible loop. Finally, he managed to say, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Georgia threw the vestments towards him on the ground, her gaze locked completely onto Max. “Keep it up, you’ll see the ugliest side of me. You are—were—a Vicar. Weren’t you?” Realizing that he had no other option, Max nodded. The smile began to reappear on Georgia’s face. “Now, I thought you were awful appealin’ before. Now that you’re, well, a fallen angel, forgive me for sayin’, you’re as yummy as they come.”

She had changed her tune with whiplash inducing speed. Max felt like he was trapped in a nightmare. “Please—”

“ _ Please _ what? Ain’t you ever been complimented afore?” She sneered. “That thing your Captain is—do they give you what you deserve? What you need?”

_ Tell me you’re my honey boy.  _ Max wanted to push the thought of that person away, as though the close proximity he was to this odious, violent person could somehow taint Neena, even in his thoughts. Showing more than a bit of his growing frustration, Max snapped, “Nee—Castillo gives me  _ everything _ I need. And I do everything I can to repay them for saving my life.”  _ My soul, my mind, my heart. My zealous devotion.  _

Georgia seemed surprised by that, staring at Max like she was lost in thought. After it looked like she had figured something out in her head, she asked, “You love ‘em?”

He spoke before he could think of what to say. “Yes. Yes I do.”  _ Utterly, obsessively. _

She tilted her head to the side, lips quirking in some horrible smirk—almost in a parody of the look he so often gave. “And do they love  _ you _ ?”

_ Neena does. At least, they used to. They said so last night, but during sex doesn't make it real... _

Max shook his head, hissing under his breath. He ignored the light he saw in her eyes. Made him feel like something on that table that had been piled up for her to look at, touch, take. “Alright, whatever you want from me, just—”

She interrupted him, her voice curt, angry. “I already  _ have _ it, don’t you get it? I have you, I got the fates a' everybody else.” She crossed her arms over her chest, stared down at him. Made Max feel like some small, infinitesimal thing in comparison to her. “So quick fuckin' with me so's I can do what I brought you here to do.” 

Max was about to ask her what she meant, maybe even demand that she free the crew of  _ The Unreliable,  _ when she grabbed onto him so fast that the air was crushed out of his torso. The feel of her kissing him was like being hit with something that squirmed with maggots.

* * *

Neena sat in the corner of the cell, their knees drawn up tight to their chest. They had not realized that they had been fucking non-stop with their hair until Catherine said, “You know, hon, you keep doing that, someone might think you carry a torch for that asshole.” The way she said it was harsh, like it had not been words, was instead a slap to the face. 

Barely aware of what they were thinking before they said it, Neena mumbled, “Can’t believe I just stood there, while that… mother _ fucker _ took him.”

Before Neena could sink too far into regretful self-loathing, Ellie spoke up from where she had been sitting on the cot in the cell she had been sharing with Max. “Well, would you look at  _ that;  _ at least they’re admitting it. For once. And he’s about the only person  _ Captain Hawthorne  _ cares at all about, ain’t that right, Parv?”

Neena glanced over to the cell across the hall, watched as the woman Ellie had asked that question to gasped, ducking her head low. “Oh, I don’t know, I think folks deserve to love whoever they wanna—”

Turning back to stare straight at their ship’s sawbones with more hostility than they maybe should have, Neena snarled, “What the fuck business is my personal life? Just ‘cause one of us  _ has _ a personal life—” They stopped, looking over at Parvati, ready to apologize. “You, excepting, sorry.”

Parvati cleared her throat, the embarrassed look on her face growing. “‘s alright, Captain.”

Ellie answered, “No, it’s really not." She stood up, from where she had been sitting hunched on the edge of the cot, staring at Neena. “If your relationship, Parv, got in the way of your place on the ship, we’d be  _ able _ to tell you.” She turned, staring straight at Neena as she spoke. “We’d feel  _ comfortable _ telling you if we were worried about you.”

Neena said, “ _ What’s  _ there to worry about? It’s someone’s personal fucking life, it’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Give me a break. If the way you were acting was anyone else on this ship, we’d have a  _ conversation _ about how our personal lives are getting in the way of being on the ship, working together. But because you’re the Captain, we have to keep our mouths shut as you keep pulling stupid shit.”

“ _ Stupid shit?”  _ Neena had stood up, walked to the side where the cell that Neena had so recently been receiving a hair braiding from the man who had been taken was, leaving only the woman that Neena was arguing with. “How many times have I busted my  _ ass  _ doing things you people all want to do? Every goddamn time I think you’d people just be  _ grateful  _ to me to let you fly with me, you bite my hand or keep pulling away like a—like a bunch of pussies!”

Eliie was silent, but she rose her head up a few measures, something shining in her eyes. She softly asked, “Have you asked where Nyoka is? How about SAM? Hm? Do you think either of them are still alive?”

Too angry to stop themselves, Neena snapped out, “SAM is a  _ robot _ , he can’t be—” They stopped themselves too late, before they finished that thought, that ignoble, selfish, unintentional admittance.

The expression on Ellie’s face seemed to say that she had gotten what she wanted; and as Neena looked around, they saw the sullen, sad looks on the two youngest members of the ship. It didn’t stop the woman from adding, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

It occurred to Neena all at once. They had become too fixated not just on just one person, but also on themselves. All of this, in fact, was their fault, because of what they had allowed to happen. They swallowed, looking away from the distraught look on their ship’s mechanic.  _ I’m so sorry, Parvati.  _

But apologies didn’t come easy to the fraudulent ship’s Captain. Years spent, bowing, scraping, trying to be someone they weren’t, had left them so emotionally hardened and prideful that it was almost like learning how to not exhale. Still, anger was wearing off of Neena, leaving the prison feeling like it was filled with the unfortunate reverberations of their loud—tantrum. 

As they thought, realized that things were far from perfectly clear-cut but, that their crew—their friends—deserved to be better treated than dismissed as being annoyances, Neena licked their lips, trying to find the words to say. They deserved to be thought of, if they were ever unaccounted for.

But as was often the case, someone  _ had _ to speak up, trample Neena’s best, awkward attempts at not being a misanthropic jerk-ass.

Catherine let out a dry chuckle, sounded like she had walked until she was a few feet away from Neena. “Sounds like you got quite the  _ tight ship _ you’ve been running.”

Neena winced, already about to regret what they were going to do, as if some part of them, the portion that had matured since they had become the Captain of  _ The Unreliable,  _ was aware of the recourse that Neena had in mind, stuck in a cage with someone who spoke to them that way. They had already started to forget the shame they had been feeling; almost welcomed the cleansing anger that burned through them. They turned, then gave Catherine a healthy glare, who, of course, looked back at them without so much as blinking. 

Neena gave up trying to do anything but be their old self, faking clearing their throat as they rubbed the knuckles in anticipation. They called out to everyone in the room, deciding that now was not the time to try to reign in their bad mood, this close anyway to being killed. “Well, at least we can all rest comfortable, knowing it can’t get much worse than it is, so how about you come over here so I can shove my fist down your—”

Fate decided to make a twat out of Neena, as the sound, of something crashing in the ceiling above the center corridor between the cells, interrupted them. As Neena ran to the cell door to look at the two people who had dropped onto the ground, their earlier desire to start the last brawl of their life, gone, the man spoke.

“Goodness. Good- _ ness _ . Here I was, thinking we would find the old and the new heads of Fallbrook having tea time together. Not see the Captain of that ship full of troublemakers in a jail cell with Catherine Malin.”

Too stunned, by the sight of the odd-looking man and the odder looking woman, Neena let Catherine greet the newcomers first.

“Shit. Not _ you  _ two.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More plot! 
> 
> We're neck-deep in the part of the story that I pushed myself to add, wanting this story to be more than angst and smut. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to write a story that's endlessly re-readable (it's what I try to do with everything I write) and it was fun to think of what it would be like to make the relationships between the crew members and the mistakes/personality quirks of a main character culminate to something that creates something meaningful with the relationship I create. I think I did pretty alright and it was great practice to do.
> 
> With my original manuscript, I'm making headway, re-writing things I changed over a month ago, but it was good to get off of Scrivener, I let myself live on it instead of focusing on working on my story. 
> 
> Not much else than that, other than--thank you, TurianTaylor for the comment, and thanks to anyone who's left a kudos on this piece, it means a lot to me, especially while I'm trying to work something out with my original manuscript and I want to feel confident enough to want to share more work like this in the future.


	34. 33: A Halcyon Rogue's Gallery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang gets closer to SubLight business than any would have ever wished for.

_ Rejecting  _ Georgia was a polite way of describing how Max reacted. What he really did was pull away as soon as her grip on him had weakened enough. He flew back, hitting the wall, wiping at his mouth with an upraised shoulder furiously. She had begun to tongue kiss him and the taste and feel of her tongue was somehow even worse than he would have thought. Georgia tasted like she hadn’t washed her mouth in a decade. 

Shocked, he at first missed the look she was giving him.

Her face was contorted in anger; the first real sight of that emotion for as long as he had had the misfortune of knowing her. Something in Max had told him that there was a reason for why she had not reacted like this around him before. It was her trying to hide this side, this expression that was on her face, from him. Georgia’s face had turned a deep, hard red, and it was an  _ ugly _ expression, but it went even beyond her usual beauty or lack thereof. There was something sinister, feeling far too natural on her face, tight and feral. Like she might leap on him and take a bite out of his neck. 

How much was because of Monarch and how much was natural to her, Max could not guess.

In one smooth motion and without even looking down at it, Georgia picked up the vestments, clutching them in her hand like they were some truly offensive thing. “ _ You.” _

Max swallowed hard, wishing that there wasn’t a wall behind him. He wanted nothing more than space, infinite space, between him and the person who reminded him less of a human and more like a rabid primal. His hands were still bound, with all he could do being holding his hands out in front of him in an ineffectual show of weakness. He needed space, or a weapon,  _ some _ weapon that could actually take this enraged woman down. 

Max did not have the ability to speak. Could not envision any words he could say to her in a lifetime spent researching and practicing them.

But, as though a switch had been changed in her head, Georgia lost the ugly, hateful expression on her face, every muscle in her body seeming to loosen. If Max had blinked, he would have missed the dramatic transformation. Making a long, languid stretch with her neck until it cricked, she sighed and said, “I was tryin’ to be nice to you. Want you to know that, remember it.”

Max finally found his voice, although he could barely hear himself speak over the incessant pounding of his heart in his ears. “What are you going to do to me?”

She shrugged—it occurred to Max, not for the first time since meeting this woman, that in spite of what she looked like that she was nothing less than an evil savant for this kind of behavior—taking her time, walking over to the table piled high with loot, the sound of her ruined boots scraping over the hard metal ground grating to Max’s ears. He watched as she worked with deliberate slowness, meticulously folding the once-holy cassock and trousers that he had defiled the meaning of for the second time the night before. She sat the neat square of blue-purple fabric down on a pile of credit chits, then smoothed her hand over the clothing, looking down at it as she spoke, so softly that Max almost thought she was speaking only to herself.

“The way you are, ex-Vicar, I think the question isn’t what I’ll do to  _ you _ , it’s what I can do to the  _ others _ .”

The blood froze in Max’s veins. “You don’t… you can’t mean that. Take the ship. Take it. But you have to leave us.”

She didn’t look at him, her eyes stuck on the clothes she had just folded. “Why should I do that?” Her voice sounded like a complete opposite to the one word refrain she had said, when Max had broken off her kissing him. She now sounded hollow, almost empty. “I don’t want to reward nobody who goes against me.”

Her mood swung violently and unpredictably. And Max was just waiting on her to do as she had threatened previously, to her own man, no less.

Was there anything he could find in the room, some weapon? Max had tried to keep his attention almost solely on this horrible person he had been locked in the cage of, but when he could, he had looked,in his periphery, for anything that he could use. Now with her not staring at him, Max finally unlocked his eyes from off of Georgia. Searched, in vain, for anything he could grab, found nothing within more than one foot away from him. If he went further away he knew that without a doubt she could be on him faster than he could ever imagine.

Max could honestly say, even as an ex-prisoner, he had never been in a situation that felt as uniquely dangerous as this. He realized, horribly, that there was  _ nothing _ he could do with any sort of a melee weapon. Even if there was anything that would work near him, there was no way that, even with some luck, he could land more than one shot before she would take him down. Knew that it would definitely take more than one blow to even dream of phasing her.

He really had only one weapon. The weapon that had ended up harming him so often in his life.

Slowly, so as not to come off as though he had any power over the situation—knowing that it would only further enrage her—Max let his bound hands come out in as close to a friendly gesture as he could manage. “Come on. You wanted to be with me? I honestly could never be with someone who killed people who’ve done nothing wrong.” Funny; there was a time when Max would have seen the innocent as so much collateral damage in the way of some greater plan. Now the thought of even the people who had been killed earlier today turned his stomach to imagine.

Partially surprising him, Georgia turned to look at him and said, in a flat, mocking voice, “ _ Come on _ . Someone like  _ you _ would never be with someone like me, no matter what I did.”

Max winced, caught between being honest and leaning onto the side of patronizing her. Which might, with someone as prideful and intensely dangerous as Georgia was, prove to be as dangerous. So he settled on some of both. “Wouldn’t you say that being this way is what’s made being in a relationship difficult in the first place?”

He was sure that this was where he had stumbled. Georgia would either put a bullet in his head, or do what she had been threatening to and send someone to begin the executions. He was surprised when instead, Georgia’s face contorted in emotion and for a split second, Max thought she was going to start crying.

She looked up at him, her eyes indeed wet. Stunned, Max watched as she walked over to the desk, leaning back against it. As she pressed her weight onto the edge, the desk made a loud groan, and Max thought that the thing was going to break, under the shared weight of all of the loot on it as well as with Georgia’s massive frame. 

“Y’know, I—I always wanted to dream  _ big _ , bigger ‘n the colony I worked at. When SubLight came ‘round to find good soldiers, I leaped. Come to find out; I just went from one type of prison to another. I helped re-build Fallbrook, from a damn town of illegal scrappers and pirates, into a vacation destination.” She stopped, letting out a long, emotion-laden sigh. The massive woman had started to look down, as though she had fallen into old, painful memories. “I got to be the foreman… foreperson, then I heard that Lilya was lookin’ at me to be the head of this town, once I made sure everything was finished and we got our first guests in from the delivery ship crews who come here from Sol.”

It was weird, to discover that he had some shocking similarities with a person like Georgia Mogran. Max, who found himself unexpectedly sucked into her story, bent forward slightly to urge her to continue. “What… what happened?” Yet more irony that almost didn’t occur to him; here he was, providing a sympathetic ear to a near-stranger, like he once had.

Georgia seemed to snap out of her thoughts, looking up to him, her eyes stern. “Whatcha mean?”

“Well, what happened, next?”

“Oh.” Georgia made a  _ clacking  _ sound with her tongue, then her face turned in a bitter, cold smile. “Same shit that always happens. Lilya dangled that promise over my head, and soon as we got our first reservation, she goes radio silent. Days later, a ship arrives. Off comes  _ Catherine Malin.”  _ She said her name, the same way that Max would have referred to a group of diseased sprats. “Tells me I s’posed to leave this eden we all built up from goddamn  _ shacks _ ; not even pre-fab, everything here was fucking shacks and whatever had been pulled offa the old buildings on Monarch in that first year, till I did everything I could to get this place up to standards.”

Max felt guilty, for once, for being unimpressed with Monarch. All things considered, if he were asked to construct a resort town without the help of any ties from the Board to build anything, he didn’t imagine how he could have built anything here. He was honest when he said, “If this was mostly you, it’s… quite an accomplishment.”

Something, a vulnerable emotion, flashed in Georgia’s eyes. “Thanks. Y’know, not all a the guys who live here have forgotten who built it. Actually,” A slow grin, surprisingly insidious, grew on her face. “Cat would be very surprised to find out just how many of these boys aren’t as loyal to her as she’d like to think.”

A cold chill started up Max’s spine as his earlier pity for her was nearly wiped out with the expression he saw on her face. Pushing off his unease from appearing in his voice, he said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Georgia’s smile turned enigmatic, and she shrugged one shoulder. “This place never forgot the person that was supposed to run it. Some of these guys have just been waiting for me to make a comeback.” 

_ Yeah, with more than a little help from  _ The Unreliable. “So SubLight didn’t know about the powder keg it was sitting on, then?” 

For the first time in minutes, something almost merry filled her eyes. “Not a clue.”

A sign of how close he had grown towards his captor in the last five minutes they had been talking: Max didn’t hesitate before he asked, “We’re not like Lilya, not like SubLight. The only reason I lied to you is because I care about the crew.” He didn’t hesitate before he added, “And I love our Captain.”

She flinched, but instead of lashing out, Georgia looked away, her arms drawn tight over her chest. “No need to brag, you know.” He didn’t get a chance to ask her what, exactly, she thought he was bragging about. “I really ought to kill you and the rest a ‘em. I’m done trusting folk that don’t deserve it. I earned this place,” she jabbed her thumb at her chest, a scowl resting, strangely, insincerely on her face. “and, fuck it, it’s an outlaw town. A few executions ought to be a good way to kick off, tell the system that the town’s under new management.”

“I don’t think that not showing mercy is the only way you can show that you have power—”

She snapped at him, making Max flinch as if she had slapped him. “Shut up! If I wanted to, I could pull all of those clothes off of you…” She trailed off, then dropped her head into her hand. 

She stayed like that for an uncomfortable amount of time. Max wanted to say something, anything, but he kept stopping himself. He felt like an observer, watching someone break down. Even if it was the violent thug who had taken his ship, was threatening to kill everyone he had grown to care about, he felt like a failure at what he should have been good at; talking to people like a person, not like some deluded, hostile maniac.

It felt like an eternity, watching as Georgia sat there, and some of her silver-streaked brown hair had fallen over part of her face, her large hand pressed over her eyes like a mask. Then she removed her hands, looked up at him. 

Sounding breathless, she asked, “D’ya think I’m a monster ‘cause of all of this?” When Max, immediately, shook his head, she said, “Not tellin’ the truth. But, I don’t…” She sighed, her shoulders drooping. She looked defeated. “Can’t blame you. I been on Monarch, a part of the SubLight machine, for so long I forgot there’s people who don’t want nothin’ from you. ‘least, they don’t want to  _ take _ somethin’ from you. But I mean, can you blame me; I see something I want, I take it.” Again, Max wasn’t certain what she was talking about: him, or  _ The Unreliable.  _ “But you think I should give you up, let your people go, too?” When Max nodded, she rolled her eyes. “Engineer damn it all to hell. Alright,” she looked back at him, frowning but without any of the anger or hostility he was almost used to in her on her face. “Start talking, tell me why I should spare you and your friends.”

Max knew he had it in him to talk this woman down—at least, the man he had been becoming in the last few months was capable of this. But even  _ he _ needed a moment to figure out how he could do it, even though Max had already somehow accomplished the seemingly impossible in getting her to even bring up letting them go.

Max motioned with his hands, knowing one way he could buy himself a few moments to think about how he was going to save them all. “First; could you please untie me? You know I couldn’t possibly overpower you. It would, however, make me more comfortable.” He added, “A friend doesn’t tie up their friend.” He didn’t bring up the only possible exception, the kind of bondage that Neena had thought of, fantasized about in that first night, the fantasy that had roused something heavy and dark but also playful, mischievous inside of Max that he had never thought before even existed.

She hesitated, a cross look coming onto her face before it disintegrated. “You have been a good boy.” Even though the distinction of being  _ a good boy  _ made Max’s skin crawl, he nodded. Watched, having to hide his relief, as Georgia came up to him and began to un-snap the clip mechanism in the plastic binding. As she pulled them off of his wrists, not stepping back so much as a foot, Georgia demanded, “You wanted to talk, so  _ talk.” _

* * *

Neena was sure at first that at any moment, the obvious mirage; in the form of the two suit and tie-dressed figures who were standing in the middle of the cells, would go away. The feeling, that the two were from Neena’s imagination, was fueled by more than their sudden appearance. At least, it had more to do with their actual appearance. 

The one who had spoken was a primly dressed man, his neat hair kept clipped all around his head, with a thick, curling mass of a shade of paler blond hair than his eyebrows neatly sitting on top of his head, some tendrils spilling onto his forehead with nothing more than the smallest flair for the dramatic and unprofessionalism. Neena couldn’t make out his eyes, as they were hidden behind the lenses of near-opaque mod round sunglasses. Even his facial hair, kept trimmed into a rounded rectangle that surrounded his lips and a downward-pointed triangle of a little patch on his chin, was very neat and sophisticated.

Next to him, dressed in an identical suit, was a pale, shockingly beautiful woman. She dressed very androgynously, her extraordinarily blue eyes not kept hidden behind anything. Her head was shaved down to a light fuzz, and had been dyed a red orange, along with her prominent, sharp eyebrows. She wore what looked like painstakingly applied make-up, her lips painted a vibrant, bright red, eyelashes accentuated with a subtle hint of mascara. Both had folded their leather black-gloved hands in front of them over their hips, in a manner that suggested that they were either twins or had been together for a very long time. Had had a long time to practice such surprise introductions.

Breaking the strange feeling that seeing them had given Neena, Catherine snapped, “‘ _ course  _ she sends in the fucking clowns from the golden kingdom of Byzantium. So, is she planning on leveling this place from orbit, or—”

The woman spoke up then, shushing Catherine, a grin growing on her face. “No, no time for tears now. It’s a waste of good effort.”

The man added, “If Lilya Hagen wanted this town wiped out, she would have done so already.” Neena could tell that this man’s schtick was in emoting far less than his companion. And, in this situation, at least, it  _ was _ affecting them.

Neena was set against pissing off representatives of SubLight, but Catherine spoke up before the Captain could even think of stopping her. “Well, why don’t you two just  _ do _ it, then? I know you probably fuck to the thought of everyone whose lives you’ve ruined—”

Neena found their head anew, panic making them turn to Catherine, interrupting. “Ah, we don’t all want to die, actually.” With the ex-head of Fallbrook staring daggers into them, Neena turned back, speaking to the two newcomers. “Hello. My name is Neena Castillo, and these, everyone else in the other cells, are crew members on my ship,  _ The Unreliable—" _

The woman spoke up, a strangely disconcerting, almost knowing warmth in her voice. “We know who you are. Lilya shares any pertinent information with us.”

The man added, with the subtle hint of a smirk at the edge of his lips, “And we’ve been keeping abreast of your… exploits in the interim as well.”

Neena had to fight the urge to cover themselves with their arms, uncomfortable with the piercing gaze that the woman was giving them—and the hidden but perceptible gaze of the man whose eyes were behind the lenses of his sunglasses. But Neena smiled, even knowing that the look was, at best, forced on them. Damn it, but Max was way better at schmoozing and being cool under pressure—at least, nowadays, he was—than them. “Good, then you know we had  _ nothing _ to do with whatever this is now—”

Catherine spoke up, her voice sharp. “They don’t care. If they’re here, then Lilya’s hand is hovering over us as we speak. And Lilya doesn’t get into forgiveness, ‘less there’s money to be made at it.”

That was a horrifying image to be in their head. Even though Neena felt like they should know better by now, they asked, “Aren’t you people just in the business of salvage? You talk like she’s some crime lord.”

The man smiled. “Crime? Oh, no. I assure you;  _ everything _ Lilya Hagen does and, by extension, every one of her current employees does, is perfectly above Board. Or else they’re no longer associates of Ms. Hagen's.”

That sent a chill up Neena’s spine like nothing they had ever felt before. “God- _ damn _ . Well, what do you two want? Can you let us out of here?”

The woman cocked her head to the side, looking at Neena like they were a specimen in a jar. “Let you out? Why, what  _ for _ ?”

Finally, someone other than Neena or Catherine spoke up. Her voice risen in anger or annoyance, Ellie rattled the bars on her cell and nearly yelled, “Let us out, so I don’t shove my boot up one of your asses, then I find the other one and shove my  _ other  _ boot up  _ your _ ass!”

The woman snickered, then turned to her companion, a grin on her lips. “My my. They are just as was advertised.” She looked between Neena and Ellie, shaking her head. “They mirror each others’ tempers and threats quite well.”

The man nodded, adding, “It almost makes me jealous. It’s a pity. These people could have their own serial on their exploits.”

“Oh, indeed. I’d buy a subscription for it.”

“Ditto.”

Felix spoke up finally, not rattling the bars of the cell he shared with Parvati, but instead kicking it. “C’mon, let us out. You can’t let them kill us, somebody’s gonna… gonna come looking for us—”

The man interrupted, his voice barely above an amused note from his earlier, calm speech. “Who would? To our knowledge, the “crew” of your ship consists of a drifter from Sol, a rabble rouser from Edgewater, an ex-juvenile delinquent from Groundbreaker, an illegally modified cleaning automechanical, a bounty hunter that everyone she’s ever met is waiting for news that she’s gone officially missing and isn’t coming back this time, a runaway from Byzantium who was recorded as deceased, oh,” he reacted finally, looking around him in confusion. “Your ex-holy man and the bounty hunter are missing. A pity.”

The woman added, “Yes, the man might have been worth a sum. His ex superiors might have paid a sum in a bounty for such a fallen leader of the wayward flock at Edgewater.  _ Someone  _ needs to take the blame for the uprising on Terra 2.”

Catherine, who had taken a seat in the uncomfortable—single—bunk on the back wall of the cell, snapped, “I didn’t take you, either of you, for the religious type. Or the kind who shilled for the Board.”

They laughed at the same time, a strange, harmonizing sound that put Neena’s teeth tight together. The woman said, “Oh, no, a belief system is a waste of mental space. And we represent the needs of Lilya Hagen, not the Board. But, if at any point in the future, Ms. Hagen were to be  _ offered  _ a seat at the table, then it would not hurt to be able to provide her  _ leverage _ for such a possible endeavor.”

Catherine scoffed. Before the woman could say something else to their odd guests, Neena said, “Wait— what are you two doing here, exactly?”

The woman gave them a smile, a disconcerting flash of perfectly white teeth. “It’s  _ rare _ to meet a cordial soul in the system.”

The man added, “Not as rare as someone  _ without _ an ulterior motive.”

“Or, for that matter, a  _ virgin _ .” She tilted her head to the side, seeming to give Neena an eerily knowing look.

“Come now, they asked us a question.”

The woman cleared her throat, finally unlocking her gloved hands from the tight, polite knot she had kept them in. She reached up to her neck, motioning to herself. “My name is Lennox.”

The man added, “My name’s Walt.” He didn’t unlace his fingers from the tight knot.

Catherine, in a miserable, soft voice added, “What’s the  _ point _ in introducing yourself, if you’re just here to kill them?”

Lennox turned slightly, giving the toppled head of Fallbrook an odd stare before she smiled at her. “Now, while we’re not here to provide you with your freedom, we’re neither here to take away your lives.”  _ Was that supposed to be  _ relieving _?  _ “We’re here to observe. We haven’t reported this incident or the current updates to Ms. Hagen, yet.”

Neena had a start, as realization came to them. “Wait—Lilya doesn’t  _ know _ yet?” 

Parvati, who had likely been too shocked to say anything thus far, finally spoke up. “What do you folks want with us?”

Walt craned his neck to look at her, resting his hands on the small of his back. “I would say that in this instance, we have no  _ ulterior motivation—” _

Lennox interrupted, adding, “—but it would be the height of folly to say we have no motivation of our own. We’re interested in observation of the events to come, but we also hope to get information on your side before what is to happen—happens.”

Parvati spoke up again, her voice raised in growing panic. “Wait—you’re just gonna stand by while we get  _ killed _ ?”

Lennox’s mouth tightened into a line. “I am sorry, dear, but the rules on what SubLight will allow to happen are quite clear. We will not intervene on the part of any member of a party who disturbs the order to SubLight business, up to and including the sacking, razing, or robbing of SubLight property, as well as assaulting our employees—”

“I am a loyal SubLight employee!” Catherine spoke up, her voice raised in a near shout. “You cannot let that woman kill me! Lilya chose me to lead, this woman’s  _ fucking insane _ , she’ll burn this place to the ground—”

Walt spoke up, his voice barely risen above his usual, calm cadence. “A failed revolution is cause for retribution on the part of the failing members of the revolution. If an uprising were to—successfully—occur, why then, we’re dealing with the new owners of whomever took this town from its previous owner, who obviously was in no position to keep such a place if they failed. You allowed Lilya Hagen’s property to change hands without her prior acknowledgement, you could not protect what was supposed to be yours by proxy. Ms. Malin, when you agreed to your position, you also agreed to abide by the SubLight employee code of conduct. You signed multiple contracts stating your unquestioned compliance, as a high-stake shareholder in SubLight. Frankly, after all that Miss Hagen has done on your behalf, I am quite surprised at your reaction.”

“Yeah, but I never thought that that woman was going to come back here and try to  _ kill me _ !”

It was Lennox who spoke up next. “The possibility of your death and all who work underneath you is a danger you were already well acquainted with. It was already a possibility that Lilya is well aware of; and more to the point, it is a built in feature of the contracts you signed. Call it the stick for the carrot.” She flashed a wholly unwelcoming smile.

Catherine almost shouted, “What’s that supposed to mean? Why the fuck won’t you people save me, save our town from Georgia?”

Walt and Lennox shared a quick look before the man spoke up. “Because the threat of your demise, due to lack of preparation and combat readiness, is intended as a method of having you protect SubLight property with as much veracity as you can. And, if you are unable to protect Fallbrook from the superior strength of a foe…” he shrugged.

Lennox picked up the line of thought, a tight, professional smile on her ageless face. “Then either the town will fall under the control of the person who has shown their superior ability to lead it, or otherwise  _ we _ will destroy any critical SubLight property before it falls into the hands of another corporation.”

Neena didn’t know how they weren’t melting onto the floor. They could only stare at the two, as though they were in a nightmare and the two standing outside of the cell were something that their imagination had created to torment them. 

Ellie said, “Wow, so I take it that means that the head of Fallbrook doesn’t get a retirement party once they’re old and infirm, just a…”

Catherine picked up for her, snarling. “A rope tied around my neck.”

Lennox held her hands out in what was supposed to be a magnanimous gesture. “There’s little reason to resort to crassness.”

Before Catherine could speak up, probably shout at the woman, Neena thought about something Lennox had mentioned before.  _ The drifter from Sol. _

Hurriedly they asked, “If I were to say that there’s more than one person here that could be worth something to the right buyer, would that be worth saving our lives?”

Lennox and Walt turned to look at them automatically, with eerie precision. Only Lennox’s eyes were visible between the two, and maybe Neena was just imagining it, but her eyes shone with an eagerness that made Neena feel like they were being sized up like a piece of potentially valuable salvage.

It was Walt who actually spoke up. “Interesting. I think I know who you would be referring to, besides your ship’s fallen holy man. It must be the ever-mysterious Captain of  _ The Unreliable,  _ the one with no past. We’ve yet to track down  _ your _ story, please forgive mine and Lennox’s gap in our usual professional abilities in research. You have created some… unique opportunities and repercussions since awakening, yes?”

Lennox added, “Oh, but it is  _ fascinating. _ And who could blame them? I would trade all of my secrets if it would save  _ my _ neck.”

“Or, rather, almost all of our secrets, no?”

“Mm, yes. Some ought to go to the grave, even the kind that could spare a person all of the flesh ‘round their necks.”

Starting to feel frustrated, Neena almost shouted, “Al-right! I have—I’ve got a trade I’d like to make with you. An offer.”

Lennox grinned at them, resting one of those ominously black leather glove-clad hands on her blush-brushed cheek, looking at Neena thoughtfully. “Oh, most  _ interesting.  _ You think who you are is worth enough to cover us going against Ms. Hagen’s usual rule of non-interference in matters outside of Groundbreaker?”

Walt added, “Wouldn’t want to step on the toes of any future members of our  _ happy little family _ by trying to stop them from proving their supremacy.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t, Walt, no, we certainly would  _ not _ .”

Neena shut their eyes, afraid that if they kept looking at these predators who were employed by Lilya Hagen that they would lose their will. So they just spat it out. “I’m Esperanza Urraca—the heiress to the original parent company of Spacer’s Choice, the Urraca Farm Union.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did you like this chapter? I enjoyed creating Walt and Lennox, but I can't say they're fully my own creation; I was inspired by something that already exists when I made these two. If someone can guess at what the inspiration for these two is, I would be pretty happy. That's kind of the fun of fan fiction; I can take a lot of ideas that I never would in my original work.
> 
> In the real world, I joined and left a so-called writing community after some time trying to work it out, only to find that it was a pretty toxic, meandering, circlejerking, and ultimately quite worthless place where 8 people held a kind of Red Crayon Aristocrats court over anyone who didn't strike their fancy or just talked shit about them in the area designated, unfortunately for me, in the place meant for people to talking about erotic writing. It's exactly the kind of place I really thought could not surely sustain such a long period of time of not really focusing on writing, but I was wrong. I'm burnt out on being social for a while, figured I'd do what they could not bring themselves to and actually focus on writing for a while. So that's what I'll be doing for a while.


	35. 34: Hit 'em Up Style

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Unreliable's Captain and Counselor try to make deals for the safety of the ship's crew in the face of the chaos that the Fallbrook rebellion brings.

At first the only reaction to the fact that Neena had said anything was how Lennox blinked at them. One of the rare, it felt, instances of speechlessness. 

The first sound Neena heard after their confession was Ellie cursing, then snapping, “ _What_? Hell no. Neena, they just want to watch the world burn. Don’t give them anything if they don’t want to help us anyway.”

Admittedly, it was a surprise to hear the woman speaking up on their behalf.

Parvati spoke up, panic in her voice. “C-Captain, please, listen to the doc. I don’t wanna see you go with these folks. W-we can think of somethin’ else—”

Walt spoke up, his arms crossed over his thin chest. “Curious. And an entertaining concept. But it all sounds… awfully convenient.”

Lennox added, “And what’s more, where is the scratch for us? What’s the incentive to even think of getting involved?”

Neena, more desperate than they thought they had ever been in their entire, wasted life, sputtered before they said, “Give me a chance; look, my family, they merged, became UDL. After I left home permanently, at least.”

“Did some research, did you?” Lennox took a step towards them, a sharp smirk tugging at the edge of her painted lips. “Haven’t left home quite so much in your thoughts yet. Both me and my compatriot are already _quite well_ versed in the makeup of the companies and factions that make up our little system. But, thank you for the little history lesson.”

 _It’s so weird, UDL is everyone else’s past, but to me it’s the future I never got to experience. Never wanted to be a part of._ “Then you know that Urraca is regarded as the backbone of what became the modern iteration of Spacer’s Choice.” Although Neena felt, feared, that they were just pulling all of this out of their ass, both of the spooky representatives of Lilya Hagen stared at them, as though prompting them to continue. “I know how… incestuous and obsessed with, uh, company royalty these people are. If you hand me over to UDL with a fat price tag, then there’s a chance—no, I _know_ they’ll pay you money for me. Figurehead, trophy, hell, even as breeding stock.” That term stuck, hard, in their throat, but not as much as their brain revolted from having to even think of that fate for them.

Catherine spoke up, this time not due to being pissed off at the two who had come in here seemingly to gawk at the lost and the damned. “ _You’re_ saying that you’re the lost heiress to the Urraca Farm Union? If that's the case, damn, wish you'd told me back when I coulda given you to Lilya."

 _Compassionate to the end, these SubLight people are. And_ grateful.

"Of course,” Lennox had a look on her face that suggested that she was about to do a killing blow to any sense, pretense, that she and Walt were just uninvolved, passive viewers. “all of that is predicated on one thing. If we were to _choose_ to believe your story.”

There was nowhere for them to go now and Neena could feel the eyes of the rest of the crew of _The Unreliable_ on them, not wanting them to do this, in spite of the fact that this could be a way to save them. To do something to make sure that _The Hope_ wasn’t just confined to die, forgotten. “I am the sole result in a loveless relationship between an asexual moneyhungry scientist and the gay, by largely absent, heir, to a company whose whole business was floundering underneath his rule. Their marriage, and having me as a result of it, is the only thing that kept the company alive. Hope, false hope, and the guidance of Beatriz, who forgot her family name and then later abandoned her own parents, saved Alphonso Urraca and his family’s company.” They stared Lennox down, daring the woman to say anything. To doubt the coldness, that old, scabbed over recollections that they knew could not help but reflect in their face. 

When the woman said, did nothing, Neena continued. “I am the only reason that Urraca and by extension, Spacer’s Choice and UDL, grew into the behemoth it is, and when I never returned, it killed the company. If I am still so worthless of a figure even so far from home, then just leave me here.” Again, when Lennox only stared at them, her face was still with the exception of the infernal energy they could see in her overbright blue eyes. 

But it was Walt who reacted. He clapped, a condescending, slow patter. “Well done. _Very_ well done. All of you play your roles well and at the drop of a hat.”

Neena could feel the anger straining their face, tight. “It’s not an act. It’s everything I’ve been trying to put behind me.”

But, after every other action they had made suggested that the two were in consensus, a near permanent, off-putting tandem, Lennox said something opposite to Walt’s disregarding of what Neena had said. “Suppose… we _did_ choose to believe you. If we chose to take you at your word for now, what would we do with you? How could we be sure—ever be sure—of the veracity of what you claim?”

Walt, although he betrayed, even behind his glasses, a dismayed look, recovered, added, “And what’s more, how could we profit off of this?”

Neena held their hands out of the bars of their cell, motioning loosely. “You guys are from a company that specializes in scrap. The lost parts of this system that are forgotten. Your job is learning to make a profit off of it all. What more do I need to do, put a fucking bow on myself?” Feeling a little daring, they added, “And how is it my fault, if you guys are worse at your job than Groundbreaker’s Fence at discovering who I am?”

Lennox blinked, for a moment betraying some harder, colder emotion. “That old fox knew about this?” It seemed that Lennox wasn’t as against Walt’s skepticism as she had at first seemed, as soon as it looked like she recovered. “ _Our job_ , as you so nicely referred to it, is not to take on urban myths and old legends at face value. We are _more_ than thorough in our research and recommendations to Lilya, in comparison to Ms. Culkelly. She can state and believe any gossip she wishes to; _we_ are here to perform a specific task on behalf of Lilya Hagen. So, tell me why I shouldn’t just leave you here with your lies.”

Felix shouted, “Hey—”

Neena cut him off, knowing that if they lost their will, their focus, that it would be over for the entire crew of _The Unreliable_. “This town’s not even worth it to Lilya.” They could swear that the stare that they could feel on their back from Catherine was giving them could melt through rebar. “She’s willing to watch it burn down. Are you guys sure you want to lose a potential diamond in this trash heap, even if I were to turn out to be a zirconium?”

Lennox seemed to stare too deeply at Neena, her eyes disconcertingly intense. With a strange smile growing on her face, she said, “That comparison came so easily for you.” She walked up to the jail cell, so close that Neena had to draw their arms in to stop from touching the spooky, ageless woman. “Tell me: were you used to wearing, touching, true Earth diamonds?”

Where before Neena would have lied or fabricated a truth, any truth, other than the unbelievable real story of their life, they shared it then. “Necklaces, tennis bracelets. Even a tiara and a diamond adorned princess dress, at my quinceanera, where the only people who showed up with other little heirs. All of whom hated me, and I’m sure I hated them even more.” They felt a cold smirk growing at the edge of their mouth at the long forgotten memory. “All a bunch of pasty brats who laughed at the culture my mother only trotted out when it made her look good.” Their major regret, later in life, had been how they had stopped themselves from wanting to fight the boys who had hid their muffled laughter behind their hands at the sight of the ungainly, scowling girl in an audacious, garish dress.

Lennox’s smile widened, but she only asked, “Why would you leave that world, that life, that all of us are trying to get into ourselves?”

Neena sighed, shook their head. “You wouldn’t understand.” Realizing too late their mistake, but amending it quickly, they added, “Like I wouldn’t understand what it was like to live the life so many people lived here. But it’s hard to imagine, how having this privilege given to you, is a prison. But it is.” Neena, embarrassed, wished they could look away before they said it, but they kept their eyes locked onto Lennox. Wanted her to see the pain, the old emotions that had risen to the surface from all of this. “Especially if you don’t fit into their tiny box of what the company needs you to be.” _The kind of suffocating role that killed my father, left him a shell of a man._

Was there a brief flash of something in the woman’s eyes, some humanity, before it sputtered out like a flame? It was hard to tell if Neena was just imagining it, as Lennox turned to glance at Walt. He must have read a question that was in her eyes, and he answered it only with an affirmative nod. Then Lennox turned to look back at the Captain of _The Unreliable—_ as well as the lost heir to the Urraca Family Union—and, taking in a deep breath, smiled, then said, “You pose an intriguing subject.” She smiled broader. “If I were to not interfere… not precisely… but I were to give you, all of you, a proper chance to make a break, maybe even save this little failed experiment, then I would expect a proper return on our risky investment.”

Catherine, almost completely forgotten about in the moment, spoke back up. “You two aren’t risking anything. No matter who loses here—you, and Lilya, win.” There was surprisingly little vitriol in her voice now, as if she were just stating some to-be-expected fact.

Walt spoke up, another almost forgotten about presence in the conversation. “There’s always risk with SubLight. You know that, almost as well as we do.”

Lennox said, “But you _do_ ,” she looked, directly, at Neena. “pose an interesting—and intriguing—option. What if I were to let all of you out of your cells, then let you find your way out of this, whether it’s in your ship or, even, if you were so daring, a bullet through the back of Georgia Mogran’s skull?”

Ellie kicked the bars on her cell, then snarled out, “C’mon! Give us some weapons, give us some help, at least!”

Lennox ignored the doctor’s outburst, addressing only the two in the same cell in front of her. “A chance at freedom, proving yourself, with as minimal of interference as is allowed by Lilya in this matter—”

Walt interrupted, his arms crossed over his chest, a frown resting on his mouth. “—and even then, that is suspect.”

“—in return, we want you to comply with our taking you into custody as soon as this matter reaches its end.” She flashed a fresh smile at Neena, eyes crinkled tight. “It ought to go without saying, but, nevertheless: it wouldn’t be pertinent on your part to try to resist us.”

Catherine, turning her head to look at the person who had been scheming for their freedom, told them, “They’re right. You can’t win in a fight with these two.” She ducked her head and seemed to stare at Lennox with all of the anger there was in her body. “Lilya made sure these knights could do the job, don’t let how they look fool ya.”

Something about the way she said that, the sureness in it, made a nasty shiver course down the back of Neena’s spine. Still, they turned, looked at the two standing outside of the cells. “Will you let the others go?”

Still smiling, Lennox said, “Oh, most certainly.”

Walt, glancing over at his partner, asked, “Are you so certain about that? I can see something of worth in turning the debauched priest to some of his ex-superiors—”

Lennox ignored him, the sound of her boots striking the metal ground as she strode up to the prison cell accompanied by her saying, “It’s not about _just_ money, Walther.”

Walt sounded honestly offended. “Len, _must_ you use my proper name?”

Lennox ignored her partner, staring directly into Neena’s eyes, as if examining something in them that only she could see. Something struck Neena, that whatever she was looking for in them, Lennox found, as the woman backed up a step. “We have a duty that transcends even our primary duty to that of what we owe to our employer. Prime though that is. We also have a role to play, a hand in shaping the future of our system and all who will come after us, to ensure that the situations we choose to involve ourselves in are not done in such a manner that we allow something as intriguing as some lost heiress to be forgotten about, lost in the shuffle of a regime change in some minor settlement.” She huffed out a breath, shaking her head. “If, indeed, you are who you say you are.”

Neena spoke up without any hesitation. “I _am_ who I said I am.”

Walt countered, “And the truth of that still remains to be seen.”

Lennox glanced over at Catherine before she asked her, “Ms. Malin, do the terms that have been discussed thus far sound agreeable to you?”

Catherine scoffed. “What _choice_ do I have? I just wish I had something to offer you myself. Maybe earn us a fucking gun, least.”

Lennox twitched a smile at the ex-head of Fallbrook. “How about—if you survive this, and if you take back what was given to you by SubLight, we will neglect to mention the role you had to play in the hostile takeover?”

Whatever Catherine was going to say was stopped when Parvati spoke up. “Captain, we can’t do this! I don’t know if we can trust these two, they give me the awful creeps.”

Ellie added, “Would you listen to her? You can’t agree to hand yourself over to them just because they open the goddamn cell doors.”

Walt curtly replied, “We are offering you the best deal we can provide in our situation.”

Lennox again stared in that discomforting way of hers, straight at Neena. “And you know that, don’t you, dear?”

 _What other choice do we have? I have nothing else to offer. And besides, we need to go. Need to do something, before that woman hurts Max._ “Yes, I do.”

Lennox grinned anew. “So I take it we have a deal.”

Felix shouted, “No!”

Neena didn’t turn to look at him, or any of the other members of their crew. “Absolutely.”

Lennox turned, looked at Catherine. “Do _you_ agree to these terms?”

The Captain of _The Unreliable_ answered without any hesitation. “Yes, of course.”

Ellie snarled at Neena, stomping her foot on the ground. “Don’t you dare do this. We should make them give us more, if they want you—”

Walt spoke up, interrupting the doctor. “Do you speak for your crew on this matter?”

Remembering how they had once been so uncertain about their right to lead these people in their crew, Neena said, “Whatever I say with my ship, goes.” And in spite of the discord in the prison earlier, as if they had said a spell, the chaos originating from the other people in their cells stopped. _Thank fuck._

Lennox nodded, a surprisingly honorable gesture, motioning to them. “Then these are the terms we will adhere to. Walt, please.” And before Neena could wonder what she was asking him to do, Walt had drawn his hand into the pocket of his jacket, removing a key. It wasn’t even a question of how the man had gotten a cell key; Neena got the feeling that these two had access to anything they could have ever wanted if they had decided to go for it. He motioned to open the cell door, only for Lennox to stop him, resting a gloved hand on his upper arm.

“Please, allow me.” In light of what would be waiting for them once they managed to do what they had to do to save their crew—their whole crew—Neena had the sinking feeling that they would very soon find out what the two had in mind for them. They watched as Lennox took the key from her partner, the cell door key looking less like a symbol of their soon to be freedom and more like something ominous as it rested in her shining, black leather glove. “I do hope you are as fast on your feet as I’ve heard.”

As Neena watched Lennox unlocking their and Catherine’s cell door, they said, “I’m faster.”

In the middle of swinging the door open, Lennox paused, repressing what looked an awful lot like a chuckle from so inhuman a person. “If I didn’t know better, I would assume that you were a head member of the board of a corporation, how effortlessly you can stand there and speak for these people.”

Neena glowered at her, earning a knowing smirk from the woman. Tilting their head up to stare the slightly taller woman in her eyes, they said, “You wouldn’t say something like that, as if it’s some kind of a compliment, only if you knew me better.”

Lennox finished opening the cell, shaking her head. She started to laugh. “You know, against the odds here, I find myself pulling for you.”

* * *

A few years ago, when Max had been told that his release from prison was predicated on one condition, he had been filled with excitement at the prospect of trading his prison garb and the far from ignoble life at Tartarus for the vestments he thought he had lost forever. That relief ended almost as soon as he had come into the Spacer’s Choice settlement where he was to maintain a flock of loyal workers, the duty he was to take in return for his new freedom, as well as the Board-sanctified right to a proper role as a real, honest, Vicar. 

Edgewater was an explosion of reek. And this was reek he would come to live in for years. When he had been there he had assumed, never eating the stuff himself, that the smell was Saltuna. It had clung to _everything_ , every person, as much as the plague later would as well as the general, deep-rooted malaise and exhaustion, did. And outside there were raiders, ready to kill anyone who stepped outside. He had traded Tartarus for a reeking, dying prison.

But once he realized what the place that he had been given was like, it was too late to turn around. The people hired to escort him to the company town had already taken the cuffs and hobbles off of him in the privacy of the ship that he had arrived in. After all, they couldn’t let the poor fools that would come to see him as their primary source of religious guidance know that he was an ex-con. And honestly, for the first few hours, he kidded himself. After all, _anything_ at least seemed preferable to Tartarus.

As he spent that first day getting to know the first people who made a beeline to meet him, however, even that first few blushes for a possible infatuation with this supposedly “sleepy little company town” he had been promised was a long foregone dream. The people were ignorant, and the world outside of his sanctum was disgusting. He didn’t know what he could possibly say to inspire people like this. People who, if he was honest, hit too close to home, to his memories of the community he grew up in.

The only person he even remotely respected, although it was tinged with his then rampant cynicism and loathing, was Miss Holcolmb, who struck him as simply being held back in a similar way as he had his whole life. For everyone else he could only wonder if there was anything, short of a match and kindling, that could save this place he had found himself in.

For his first service Max had found himself at a complete loss for what to say to inspire these people. And, honestly, as he combed through the notes he had made while in prison, dreaming of finding some truly meaningful points to make when he finally earned his first lectern honestly, he could find nothing that said to him that the Great Engineer had some inspired reason for him to be in this place. He wanted to be sincere; his passion, and the will of The Great Equation, after all, was all that he had ever needed to guide him down this path. As he had looked at his notes, some sacramental wine doing more for him than being useful for anything that Scientisicians would approve of, Max had his first of many mental breakdowns the night before he was supposed to give his first fucking sermon.

The morning after, he, hung over, stood before his new flock—and, _by verity_ , there were so many more of them than he had thought there were—and simply stalled. The sight of all of those faces, those eyes, looking expectantly at him. As if _he_ had something to offer to them, when he couldn’t even make himself happy.

He took a breath, then as he had done numerous times before in his life, Maximillion DeSoto gave a sermon that was so skillful and persuasive that the roomful of yokels gave him a standing ovation at the end of it. Which was funny; Max was astonished to realize that he had not really given the words he was saying much forethought. Much of any thought at all. It was, after all, before he had decided that he would rather waste the gift he had been given in his ability to persuade, rather than waste it in a rotting pit, had stopped putting an effort in at all into his sermons and counseling.

Years later, Max was no more than a foot away from a woman whose eyes reminded him more of the eyes in a rabid Canid, and he had been told to argue his point, moments from being freed from wrist binds.

When did anything ever, really, change for him, even with those vestments no longer on his body?

Clearing his throat, Max massaged the impressions that the bindings had made in his wrists, relieved for a moment to look away from her. “We have been riding through Halcyon. We’ve seen the injustice that the Board and even those not affiliated with the Board have imposed on people.” When he looked back up at her, he was just a little surprised—not fully after all, having gotten almost used to the intense attention this woman gave him—to realize that she was staring at him. In a way that reminded him a little too uncomfortably, of the way some of those Edgewater workers had stared at him. As though expecting him to say something truly profound.

But he knew that Georgia may at least look stupid, but she was, at least, not naive. “So why were you a Scientician?” 

Max swallowed. “I’ve learned better since leaving. I had… had a good friend, showed me the error of my ways.”

That was surely a mistake. Georgia’s eyes flashed, alight with a fury, before it disappeared. “Was it that little Captain?”

“Yes.”

Georgia drew herself up, thick arms crossed over her chest. “You’re saying we’re all a victim of all a that?” Before Max could answer, she added, “So you’re sayin’ you’re better than me, still, even with those fancy duds off?”

Hurriedly, Max shook his head. “No, no—not better. I let myself believe that the way things are now is correct. I know that that’s not the case, not anymore. While I believe it won’t be easy, nevertheless, we need to work—together—to change things.” It felt strange to voice that aloud; an idea so naive, coupled with the idea, of one day it being miserable, bitter old Maximillion DeSoto pushing for it, that he had not actually ever voiced it to the person he felt the closest to.

Well, now he had gone and said it aloud for the first time, and to a person who he would imagine had no appreciation for it.

With her arms still crossed over her chest, an impassable look on her face, Georgia asked, “So what do you think of Fallbrook?”

Max ducked his head, a knowing smirk, out of habit more than anything, growing on his lips. “Are you asking me what I think of Monarch, of the current regime in Fallbrook, or of SubLight?”

He could see it in her eyes, a flicker of something warm, almost human. “Hm. ‘right, let me make it simpler for you. What kinda... role do you think we, as the people of Fallbrook, have in Halcyon? The Board?”

Maybe it was a mistake, but Max blurted it out before he could rethink himself, preferring to lean on his instincts out of habit in situations where he was out of his element, like he was then. “Not much of one.” Seeing the fury building in her anew, he added, “It doesn’t have to be that way. As it is, right now, with Catherine Malin running this town, you’re not much more than Lilya Hagen’s footprint on Monarch.”

Something in Max said that he hadn’t completely fumbled his point, his intentions, as he saw the look on her face. “You think so, too.” But a shadow, as it frequently did with this woman, crossed her expression. “You’re just sayin’ that to blow smoke up my ass—”

Max had to fight his old instincts, to reach forward and touch her as he often had done when he had his post as the Vicar of Edgewater. _Form a close and sometimes physical bond with the members of your flock as needed,_ that was what the texts he had gotten on how to become a Vicar recommended, one that he eventually threw away. Well, no longer as a Vicar and not in any desire to continue having physical interactions with this woman, he made another once familiar move, resting his hands behind his back, clasping his hands tight in what was supposed to be a comforting but subtly authoritarian pose. “I might be. But, listen to me; this situation isn’t good for either of us. How do you think that Lilya’s going to react, with you usurping the role she intended for someone else?”

Georgia smirked, her arms drawn over her chest. “We can fend off any kinda assault—”

“How about an assault from the air? How about an attack where no one’s boots even touch the ground, no target to hit? How would you survive a shelling from orbit? Or if they lay a siege on Fallbrook? Do you even have the resources, any means of generating food in the long term?” When Georgia only scowled at him, Max continued, “To be a good leader means knowing when to fight—and when to accept that it’s in your best interest to give up. So you can fight another day.”

“Something your Captain taught you, I take it?”

Max had to bite back an unexpected laugh. “Well, yes, actually.”

There it was on her face; something, almost vulnerable. Georgia sighed, looking as though she were avoiding a task that she dreaded. “C’mon, you gotta stop this. I already decided this’ what’s gonna happen, I’m not gonna go an’ give up to the people who—who took this from me in the first place.” She scoffed, rubbing her hand against her neck. A gesture that seemed to say, to Max, that in spite of what she was saying, she wasn’t as sure about everything as she was pretending to be. “ _You_ said it yourself: they’re gonna let this place rot ‘till there’s nothing here that’s worth a thing.”

Max shrugged. “Maybe it’s time you stopped caring. Let them have it. Make a life of your own.”

She looked like she was about to say something, then she stopped. Georgia looked at Max, and it struck him to see the vulnerability, raw there, more than he had ever seen it. “Easy for someone like you to say. You have your ship, you have…” she stopped talking, clearing her throat. She wiped furiously at her face—swabbing away a tear?—and descended into a powerful coughing fit. When she finished, she looked up, said, “People like you’d never want anything to do with people like us, me an’ the rest a the people Malin exiled.” She took a breath, hesitating before she asked it. “Right?”

Max prepared to answer that, feeling relieved that he had, after everything, managed to find some sensitivity in this woman. Before he could open his mouth, however, he was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Turning, Max realized that this was going to be more than a quick interruption.

One of the goons who had dragged him here in the first place leaned in the doorway, hand balled up into a fist. He was panting, hard. “Got a problem, boss.”

It was interesting to see the look of shock that was on Georgia’s face. “What do you mean by “problem”?”

Wide-eyed, the goon said something that Max was almost certain he had imagined. “It’s a cleaner, boss. An automechanical, ‘cept someone put some kinda a flame thrower on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know when you've already had the football pulled away multiple times before by the same asshole who tells you to take another running kick--this--one--last--time? Yeah, I'm kind of waiting for the next week to hit and the other shoe to drop. Without going into detail, soon I will learn that I will be able to make an actual living for the first time in years, or I will be spending a lot of my time doing a lot of shit I don't want to do. I just want somewhere to wait the chest death out, is that too much to ask?
> 
> I was having so much fun with a little baby nintendo switch version of Civilization that I almost forgot to update the new chapter of my longest fanfic piece to date. I suck at it, but it's great to not think about real life for a minute, you know? 
> 
> UPDATE: I got the notice, the job's mine for all of the good and bad it means. Hey, a steady job's worth SOMETHING, right?
> 
> Enough complaining, you guys still enjoying reading this?


	36. 35: Cowboy Boogie

There was one good reason why Nyoka wasn’t in a jail cell with the rest of the human crew of  _ The Unreliable.  _ While everyone else had had a rude early awakening in their beds she was passed out under a table in the bar, having been left there by everyone else the night before.

When she crawled out from under the table well past first light, the first thought that came to her mind was:  _ Can’t believe nobody coulda been bothered to shake me awake before I fell asleep down here.  _

Her face hurt; Nyoka realized when she rubbed it that she had fallen asleep on top of some nut shells. It wasn’t the worst thing she had woken up on top of. But picking shells out of her face and dealing with a hangover with no hair of the dog in her system was why she didn’t think too much about the fact that there was no one to yell at her for hopping over the bar and amending that  _ no hair of the dog _ by downing the first bottle that caught her eye. 

Maybe something ought to have told her that there was  _ something  _ wrong when, during the half-staggering walk she made back to  _ The Unreliable, _ Nyoka found not a single soul out on the street, having been strangely lucky to miss any of the would-be Fallbrook Rebels whose job it was to make sure that someone like Nyoka didn’t just stroll around outside with any ambitions of re-taking the twon. But, to be honest, she WAS more than a little hungover, not able to give up a chance to get falling down drunk on someone else’s tab. That was just good Bounty Hunter etiquette, far as she was concerned.

How she made it to the ship without one of the rebels finding her was nothing short of a miracle. It wasn’t as if Nyoka hurried to the ship; and the fact that, all it would have taken for one of the patrolling Liberators to see the hungover Bounty Hunter would have been to glance in the direction of the docked ship, seemed to prove that it was a testament to how little attention she garnered. Or else that there was some strange force protecting the strangely lucky Monarch native.

With a combination of the oblivious bounty hunter and the similarly oblivious ex-SubLight goons, Nyoka was shambling onto the ship with none of the SubLight Rebelsany the wiser, grunting in response to the pointed questions that ADA made with where everyone else was.

She walked up to her room, found a mostly empty bottle of booze and used it to down Hangover Aid before she passed out, fully dressed, in her bed.

* * *

SAM had been largely ignored by all but the A.I of the ship as It was used to. When the invasion of  _ The Unreliable  _ had occurred the night before, the automechanical had been looked past because who thought that a cleaner mech was anything to worry about? Of course, it was easy to look past the weaponry that he had been modded with, as it wasn’t clearly visible unless he was raining fire and bullets down. So for all Georgia’s band of not-so-merry bandits knew, the maintenance closet held a un-powered automechanical programmed for cleaning. Which wasn’t completely untrue. 

It remained off until ADA, realizing that Nyoka wasn’t about to wake up from her nap anytime soon, turned SAM on with the instruction to go see if It could find out what was going on with the others. It was a curious thing for a not so secretly self-aware A.I, to care about the human members of her crew. But, as she sent SAM off for news, something occurred to the A.I, that just because the drunk had shambled back on board, that it didn’t mean that the others were safe.

Almost as soon as ADA decided to try everything in her ability to awaken the passed out sole member of the crew who was on board, SAM was met with the goons who had just been ordered to get aboard  _ The Unreliable. _

At the sight of the automechanical, one goon punched the shoulder of the other, biting back a laugh. Speaking to the machine that had not stopped in its walk towards them, she shouted, “Out here to clean up the mess?”

SAM paused, about to continue Its path past the goons who were ascending the steps of the landing pad. In Its usual cheery tone, the automechanical responded, “Cleaning of all kinds is done best with Spacer’s Choice antimicrobial-powered chemical scrubbers. Consider them to be your own cleaning team. Gleam Clean All Purpose Spray: It’s Not the Best, It’s the Spacer’s Choice!”

The goons erupted into laughter, falling over each other. One of the goons shouted back, “Look at him, he tryna sell us some fuckin’ fancy cleaner!”, making them all burst into fresh laughter. 

SAM didn’t respond, as It always did to teasing, not possessing the self-awareness or capabilities to keep up with humans like ADA, instead following the orders given to It by another member of the crew of Its ship. As It tried to descend the stairs, bypassing the laughing goons, It was stopped when a goon pressed a hand to its cold metal arm. 

“Hey, where d’ya think you're going?”

Another one tapped his compatriot, motioning to the automechanical. “You don’t think they woke this thing up to try to tear our heads off, do you?”

The one who had started the teasing barked out a fresh laugh. “ _ This _ thing? Lookit him. He’s got summa that cleanin’ shit in his tanks, not napalm.”

SAM paused for just a moment, taking in Its situation, not with any sense of self-preservation, but with the intention of obeying the protocols that It had been programmed with. “Please clear my way, Halcyon citizens. I have a task I need to complete, and I thank you for your compliance.” The automechanical didn’t have any way of comprehending the effect that the tone of the voice that It spoke in had on others, and therefore was ignorant to the cheery, canned optimism that tended, at the best of times, to grate on the ears of Its human crewmembers.

In this situation it seemed to make the “Halcyon Citizens” blocking Its path react in the way that was opposite to the barely suppressed condescension that most aboard  _ The Unreliable  _ treated SAM after It had spoken to them. No, Its talking earned the automechanical a fresh peal of shared laughter. The three goons clung to each other, as if they would be liable to fall to the ground otherwise. 

Finally, in a whimpering, wheezing voice, one of the two men pointed at SAM and said, “Oh, we gotta dismantle this thing. But we gotta find a way, keep that voice box. Think we can get someone who knows ‘bout how to use it to say anything we want it to say?”

SAM spoke up, Its voice that unending cheeriness that had been decided on by some board of executives as one that was friendly and comforting—no matter the context of whatever It said. “I’ll only request that you step aside one more time, I am required to search for the lost crew of  _ The Unreliable.” _

But the words that the automechanical said were drowned out in yet another peal of laughter. Nevertheless, SAM wasn’t any less determined to complete Its goal, in spite of the derison these people gave It. With Its kill settings set so that SAM didn’t immediately rely on violence to save Itself when a human crew member wasn’t present, all It could do was try to implore these ignorant raiders that it was pertinent that they leave the machine to complete Its goal.

But even something that could be infinitely patient like SAM had Its limits.

Which the goons found when one lifted a gun and pointed it at SAM’S “head”, the behavior governing Its self-preservation protocol now turned on in response. 

“Here, I’ll kill it, then we can scrap it for parts.”

* * *

All who had a chance to know the doctor for longer than a number of minutes—or had shared a bottle with her—got to know that her vocabulary was littered with easy profanity. In one of the rare instances since she had come on as a member of the crew of _The Unreliable,_ the profanity was more than fair. "Fuck."

Neena nodded their head without even realizing it. After all, how else could you describe the situation they had found themselves in?

Catherine had shown them a secret entrance to the caverns where they stored everything—except what was useful in fights. Crouched behind canisters and boxes that had been stored in the caverns with nothing to work with, except for some old mining gear that had been stored in a box. Bits and pieces of gear, not meant for fighting, the only weapons being pick axes and, in one case, a huge wood trestle that Felix had argued for wanting to use, in spite of everyone else’s worries that it would have to be dragged like some club.

They had heard the expected noises of someone doing the rounds in the caves, now they were left with little to do but to wait for someone to come back in. In spite of the fact that all of them were eager to leave, it was decided that if they managed to roust even one guy and get his weapons, then they’d be in a better position than they were in unarmed.

As the minutes ticked by, however, the thought that they could catch someone on patrol was starting to feel like a fantasy. In spite of the fresh excitement at being set free, no one had really been sure that this would even work out. Crouched on the ground in the near dark, it was eventual that someone would try to argue for them to stop waiting to ambush a guard in here.

Unsurprisingly, it was Catherine. “Think we missed the last patrol in here for a while. I don’t think it’s gonna be a good plan, waiting for much longer.”

Neena twitched. They had known that the ex-head of Fallbrook wouldn’t be happy taking orders from the ship Captain who had brought the woman who had taken her town from her. “We can’t go out there. We don’t know if someone’s waiting at the entrance—we don’t know how  _ many _ will be waiting out there.” 

The situation that they were in posed the worst odds that Neena had seen—at least since their first ten minutes re-awakening in Halcyon had been, in the wilds, just outside of Edgewater. But while back then it had just been their skin on the line, now they had other people to think about. They had some redemption that was in order, no matter what was going to happen. And, of course, they meant to save the man who had more than likely made their transformation from a selfish, shady goon possible. 

They were far less willing, however, to take on more than one of Catherine Malin’s ex-employees with more than scrounged, impromptu weapons. Neens was desperate for redemption, but they didn’t have a death wish.

But Catherine wasn’t going to accept any of those reasons. If Neena was in a hurry to get out, then Catherine was almost rabid in her need to get out of the dark, dank cavern. To have her own chance at not only proving that she had redeemed herself to her employer, but also take her town back. 

Proving that point, the deposed head of Fallbrook said, “Who  _ knows _ what she’s planning? We have to get out there, before those two decide to go tell Lilya what’s been going on, then none of us are in for a good night tonight.”

Neena barely stopped themselves from wanting to roll their eyes. “Yeah, but if we jump the gun, we’re not gonna have an  _ afternoon _ to spend doing anything.”

Felix spoke up, his voice low. “Guys, can we wait to fight until  _ after _ we’re safe?”

Neena turned to look back at the man, felt a bitter sneer growing on their mouth. “Well, I don’t know, do  _ you _ guys want to take a vote here, see how we’re all feeling about dying because we can’t wait to run outside, unarmed?”

As Catherine looked ready to jab her finger—and maybe even  _ more _ than that—into Neena’s face, the sound, of someone running into the cavern, made both deposed heads of their groups hunch down behind the canisters. 

Neena’s mind spun, wondering what they would do, if someone managed to look behind the canisters. Found the people who were supposed to be in prison were, well, waiting to ambush any of Catherine’s ex-employees unlucky enough to wander near. 

As they heard two sets of booted feet walking, indeed, up to the back of the cavern, Neena realized that that worry had no place in their mind right now. It was now or it was never. Looking over at the woman that they had just been arguing with, Neena could see a glint in Catherine’s eyes that said that she was as ready to go as they were. The only fighting that was about to happen, now, was side by side, even if it was only a momentary truce.

As Neena curled their fists into hard balls, they heard one of the two speak, his voice raised in obvious panic. “We need the grenades, dammit! You said you think you saw some back here for emergencies?”

The other one, a man, answered, “No, I said I think this place sounds like a good place to hide! I don’t wanna go out there, I don’t care if that woman tries to kill me, there ain’t no fuckin’ way in hell I’m taking that thing on! Why do I have to pick which one I prefer, all these bitches are  _ crazy! _ ”

The other one barked out, “Shut it! Why the hell’d they have to piss it off? What are we s’posed to do about a metal thing spittin’ out  _ fire _ ?”

It occurred to them what the hell the two were talking about, in the split second before Neena leaped over the canisters, jumping atop of a man who yelped in surprise. From behind the canisters, however, it seemed that Catherine had taken a different tactic in mind. Turning, Neena watched as the ex-head of Fallbrook pulled up the end of a pickaxe, which, in the gloom of the badly lit cavern and in a split second,  _ did  _ kinda-sorta look like it might be a rifle, aimed it at the man that Neena had not tackled.

“Freeze!” Catherine yelled.

The man dropped the rifle he had been holding, raising his hands up in surrender. As Neena saw the look on his face transform, from shock, disbelief, then dismay as he realized that he had been tricked, another voice rose up, this one belonging to someone that Neena had thought they had successfully alienated themselves from.

“Damn it, Castillo, if you injure your back again, I swear I’m gonna leave you where you lay!," Ellie barked.

As the man beneath them groaned in agony, Neena looked over the barrier of the tops of the canisters, watched as half of their crew poked their heads up from behind. Ellie was standing next to Catherine, scowling at Neena, arms crossed over her chest. 

Neena shrugged. “What was I supposed to do?” They paused, then added, “And it’s  _ Captain _ Castillo, at least until I turn myself into SubLight for processing into Soylent.”

Ellie had uncrossed her arms, her hands curled into fists at her side as she nearly shouted back at them. “Damn it, you’re not the only one here; I’m sure Felix would have tackled that guy!”

Felix, almost sheepishly, rose his hand up before he brought it back down. “I woulda tackled him, boss.”

Ellie motioned to the young man, anger not leaving her face. “See?! You don’t need to do everything  _ yourself _ , you fucking idiot!”

In the middle of thinking of a retort, It was Catherine who stopped the argument. “Fine, dandy, I don’t give a fuck. Hand me that turd’s gun.” Neena did bend down, picking the gun up, but they kept it clenched in their hands. Catherine scowled at them, stomping her foot on the ground. “No! Hand me—gimmie the damn gun—”

Neena rolled their eyes, then bent down to the still dazed jackass they had jumped, fished around until they found the barrel of the shotgun he had been holding. Pulling it up, Neena looked at Catherine to make sure she was ready to catch before they threw the firearm. “ _ You _ get to be up close and personal. I need to stay back a bit; if I get hurt, those babysitters our mom sent won’t have anything to barter with.”

They ignored the flash of recognition in their crew members’ eyes. Were unwilling to let the moment become, terrifying to think about,  _ sappy. _

Thankfully, one of the goons they had jumped spoke up to ruin the mood thoroughly. “Could you… get off me? I can’t breathe…”

Catherine cocked her head, looking at Neena meaningfully. “We can waste a bullet on these assholes, or we can tie em up so I can give them some justice later on.” She nodded towards Neena, obviously enjoying the heft and weight of the shotgun in her hands. “You make the choice.”

Neena looked over at the goon that still stood, his hands only half-raised, obviously at a loss for what to do. They scoffed, then grinned. “Let’s tie them up with some of the rope in that mining box back there. Something tells me we’re gonna need as many bullets as we can get.”

The man that Neena had pressed their foot into, harder, let out a loud groan, when he spoke he sounded like he had been crying. “Please, just kill me! I don’t want to be tortured!”

Catherine walked around the canisters, rope in hand as she looked down at the pitiful man that Neena had leaped on top of, then over at the man that she had tricked into giving up his weapon. A terrible grin itched across her face, one that Neena was unhappy to say they had started to get used to. “That’s not  _ really _ up to you, now, is it? Give mama some time, I need to decide how I’m going to do it properly. Firing squad, dragged through town by an automechanical till you’re just broken limbs, worked to death—hell, I might get me a whole new set of shacks outside of the city walls, we can drag you in in the day, make you do work until you drop dead from overwork.” She shrugged. “Or get ravaged by a pack of canids.”

Parvati looked like she was in shock, finally speaking up, her voice raised in a near panic. “N-now, we don’t need to be getting upset over nothing right now. We got other things to be worried about.”

Catherine looked at the young woman, an eerie expression of relaxed joy on her face that you would normally find on someone who was experiencing something that brought them joy, such as a music performance or getting a hug from a loved one. “Upset?  _ Who’s  _ upset? It’s just talk between old friends right now.”

The man that Neena was still on top of made a whimper, and they had the sense that he wasn’t reacting from how they still had a boot pressed to their back. Neena rolled their eyes, motioning for Catherine to throw the rope. “Yes, yes, let’s get a move on; I thought you said you were in a hurry.”

Catherine shrugged, that strange smile never leaving her face as she tossed the rope to the Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ . “I feel like a healthy work life balance is important to one’s psychological health.” In spite of what she said, she came around, motioning for Neena to vacate where they had been crushing down on their goon. As Neena stepped off, eliciting a grunt from him, Catherine crouched down on him, then said, “Yes, I think we’re gonna have some fun in a little while, Jim, wasn’t it?” When the man nodded hesitantly, still face planted into the ground, Catherine’s smile broadened. “Yeah, we’re gonna have some  _ fun _ here in a little while.”

Neena glanced out towards the entrance to the caverns, hearing footsteps in the distance. They felt the tension tighten throughout their whole body, wrapping like a strait jacket in one moment, and in the next it was as if adrenaline had been injected in them.

Only they and Catherine had anything even remotely worthy to use against more than two of these idiots. Nevertheless, Neena knew that if they would ever have a chance to prove that they had been worthy of the title of Captain Hawthorne it was here and now.

Straightening up to their full, thoroughly unimpressive height, Neena clutched their stolen rifle and, without turning to look away from the entrance, they ordered, “Felix, c’mere and keep this one occupied. Parvati, stand on top of this other one. Catherine,” they turned to look at the now grim-faced person who had taken up their spot atop of the floored goon, taking in a deep breath. “Let’s do it loud, warn everyone in hell who’s on the way.”

Catherine nodded, and something—dare Neena believe that it was  _ respect? _ —flicked in her eyes. Then again, it might have been from how hard it was to see in there. She brandished the shotgun, gesturing behind her with a head flick. “Behind me, hoss. I wouldn’t wanna be whoever’s gonna be in my line of fire in a second.”

Neena shook their head, taking a few steps back until they were behind the woman, rifle at the ready a scant moment before the first of the goons came further into the cavern. Ready to double down on Catherine’s soon-to-come decimation.

* * *

Well, Nyoka was  _ awake.  _ Although, in the face of what they were dealing with, the Bounty Hunter wasn’t sure if she wanted to be conscious after all. No matter what the A.I who had pestered her awake would  _ try _ to tell her.

Having climbed through the usually locked and unused roof hatch of  _ The Unreliable _ (except for that one time that Ellie had gone sunbathing up there with a half-willing Neena while they were bored as fuck), Nyoka had first made sure that her old girl was loaded and ready to go—along with, oh, more than enough ammo ready to load to take out everyone on Monarch, and then some—and prepared for carnage. There were, what had to be, well over fifty people in a complete chaotic swarm down below, on the broken road’s end that lead to the landing pad and what she could see from the roof of the bungalow. What she had not expected was to see the ship’s once near-tame automechanical on a warpath as it rolled down the broken road. All the while, it seemed, SAM had not ceased rolling off company slogans and occasional requests for cooperation from the people it was lighting up like a bundle of wicks.

“Step aside, please, I need to get through,” It requested in its usual benign, overtly polite tone, even as one of Its victims was howling in pain on the ground as It rolled over them.

“Oh,  _ shit _ ,” Nyoka muttered, half horrified and half amused by the sight of the flaming assholes who kept coming up to SAM in the persistent desire to prove that they could take on a pissed off robot. The sight of the ex-SubLight goons enveloped in flames in the afternoon sun almost made her pause to drink in the tableau.

Someone yelled out, “Damn it, where’s Asher and Jim?” Nyoka noticed that the voice came from someone who remained a  _ good,  _ safe distance from SAM.

Another cried back, “We sent those two to storage to find us some fucking grenades!”

“Where the  _ hell _ are they, then?!”

_ Good as time as any.  _ With a sigh, Nyoka went back to her happy place for firing, as much to clear her thoughts and prepare for what was to come as well as to deal with how groggy and broken her mind felt. Back to her usual brass tacks. 

Breathe. Relax. Aim. Slack. 

She dropped to her knees, then laid on her belly. Good news at this height and the height of her targets: they weren’t likely going to get a shot at her if they did manage to see her. Bad news: if they hit, they were gonna hit her in the head. Oh well; Nyoka had survived more firefights than she could hope to count, and something told her that if she didn’t do her part in protecting this godforsaken town and the ship, then fate would find some way to punish her. Like make it impossible to land a clear shot ever again. 

Laid on her belly, Nyoka focused on her breathing, then brought the rifle up and stared through the scope, looking until she found her first target. As she glanced past SAM, she became aware that in the time it had taken for her to get to a good bench rest position that the automechanical was looking a lot less like a rampaging fire thrower on two legs and more like a beaten trash can that was intermittently belching flames, to almost laughable effect at the people who had taken to beating it, apparently having decided that the burns were worth shutting SAM down.

Against all logic for a woman who had gotten her own taste of rampaging cleaning ‘bots in the past, Nyoka felt sorry for the automechanical who had only ever wanted to clean and hawk products. At least It had a warrior’s death, and Nyoka would make sure that  _ if _ they survived this, she would pour some booze out for it. Well, directly into their mouth. Same difference.

As Nyoka began firing, she made it a point to focus on the people who whaled on poor SAM. She took out about nine, and would have taken more out in the same time, if not for the greasy, heavy hangover that clouded her abilities. 

And the hangover was a reason, also, for why she missed the sound of someone clambering onto the roof of the ship, stalking up behind her, grabbing onto her before the Bounty Hunter could even dream of fighting back.

Her rifle fell off of the edge of the ship where it broke from the fall. But not before it discharged accidentally, sending a bullet into the shoulder of a curious ex-SubLight employee who had broken from the fray created by the rampaging automechanical to see what had dropped from the top of the ship.

* * *

Max remained completely unaware of what was happening outside besides the fact that there was a lot of noise outside of the too-small room. All of that commotion, the yelling, to Max could only be the many people that were supposed to be suppressing what remained of those still loyal to Catherine.

He might have been less than eager to see what was going on outside, but in all honesty, it was hard to envision anything out there to counter the tension in this room that he shared with the new head of Fallbrook. In spite of the fact that she was almost across the room from him, Georgia seemed to pin Max down, a look in her eyes that he had never seen before. It occurred to him—this was the look that someone would see on this woman’s face moments before she mercilessly ended their life.

She had fallen silent, that intense look on her eyes the only dubious sign to him of what she could be possibly thinking, as the continued sounds of chaos outside seemed to highlight the seriousness of this moment. A moment that seemed to never want to end.

They had spent the last who knew how long with Max trying to tell her every very true reason why she should not keep doing this. And more than a bit of truth stretching, when it came to what repercussions she would face, if she just gave herself up. And then, after all of that, he had no choice other than to look at her. Wait for her to give him the answer of what she would do.

Expecting Georgia to just go through with tying him up anew, some small but increasingly vocal part of Max half wished that she would just end it if she was going to keep tormenting him, Max was surprised when she lifted a hand, pointing to the door. “Sounds like your friends are here for you.”

It was hard to believe it, but just ten minutes ago, Max had thought that he had come close to talking this woman out of whatever dark path she was surely about to drag him into. Now they may as well as never had any sort of a more frank, sensitive moment like they had before. 

Max tried to swallow his terror, his dismay, as he shook his head, focusing on keeping his voice calm. Resorting to returning, mentally, to cool, calm, collected Vicar Maximillion, needing to explain to the Clemency Board why he deserved a second chance to live outside of Tartarus. 

Huh, that was an interesting revelation; he had almost forgotten that he had _ technically _ been on probation that was supposed to last… what, how many more years now, for Aggravated Aggression Towards a Member of the Cloth as well as for Public Indecency with Intent to Spread Disinformation? And it wasn’t as if he had had further time off of that period removed for any reports of meaningful, good behavior that had been shared with the Clemency Board. He was the first to admit now: he had been a  _ terrible _ spiritual leader of the company town he had been imprisoned in. But he was a damn good bullshit spin artist.

The moment he saw Neena, it had been as if his every intention, of keeping his head down and trying to figure out the secrets to the universe, had been broken free in him. He wanted to go, to be. To live, outside of the Saltuna air of Edgewater. To find the secrets to it all on his own terms.

And it would all end here, not just for him, but for a shipful of people who had, in their own ways,, lead to his true emancipation. Unless he managed to talk one more person into a lie. 

Looking at the woman who had grown far too quiet for his comfort, Max said, “What’s going on out there does not matter. It’s not too late, you can make a stand, in here, with me, now. We can step outside, hand in hand, and put an end to whatever is going on out there.” He held his hands out, imploring. “It’s never too late to admit you were wrong.”

Wait, was he talking about this woman, or had he slipped, was projecting himself on her instead?

There it was again in her eyes—an elusive flicker of something human, almost begging for something she was too proud to admit to wanting to, or was otherwise incapable of, asking for. It was something he was, of course, more than accustomed to with a certain ship’s Captain who had the personality of a sea urchin, complete with the decadent, soft luscious inside. Or so Max, who had never actually indulged in uni aside from reading about the experience of eating one, imagined it would.

Nevertheless he fully expected her to shut him down. To his surprise, the woman crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes taking on a strange quality that nearly stood opposite to the hard edifice that her face took on. “You must be lyin’ to me.” It took a lot for Max to not sigh, or show any other sign of his dismay. “But…” She stopped, stalling.

Max felt it; an unexpected sense that he had managed to somehow connect to this dangerous woman. Had found some vulnerability, as if he had been climbing a sheer rock face and he had found the slightest recess in it that formed a place fit for him to slip his fingers inside of. He only needed to pull himself up, move onto the next place where he could grab ahold of. 

“Yes?”

She shrugged, an almost deflated energy nearly taking over her earlier anger. “You don’t think I could get Lilya to hear me out? Even though I outed the weakling she put up here?” When Max only shook his head, she looked, for a moment, like she might snap at him. Instead, she added, “Nothin’ ever goes well for trash like me, right?”

Max sighed, feeling himself unwittingly starting to empathize with the woman who had imprisoned and planned to kill his crew members. “You’re not trash. I think everyone in Halcyon has their mistakes they’ve made. Your life is just the reflection of how you choose to deal with the obstacles that you’re given.”

There it was; the first of anything even resembling a good mood on her face, not a smile, but a definite upturn of the edge of her lips. She shook her head, as if to dissolve something that had occurred to her and lost eye contact with him. “ _ Vicar Max _ , huh?” Before Max could respond, she chuckled, her mouth finally forming an honest smile. “You must have been somethin’, when you usta wear those duds.” She shook her head, sucking her teeth until her lips were suctioned in. “A nice, fancy boy.”

Max rubbed at the back of his head, wanting to just stare at the ground. He had absolutely no experience with dealing with how to react to being talked to this way, in stark contrast, ironically, to the only person he had ever been intimate with. He had managed to go his whole life without anyone sexualizing him, aided in no small part by his caustic personality, and now that he was in what could charitably be called his mid-life crisis, he found that there existed some people who found a neurotic like him to be to their tastes. And, unfortunately, one of those was not the type of beautiful, fascinating person that Neena Castillo was.

Whether or not she could see his discomfort, Georgia said, “But those days are over. You’re right about one thing; things can’t keep the way they been.” She let out a long groan, then walked over to the seat she had been sitting in when Max had walked into the room. 

Finding his voice, Max said, “If you do something now, then we can work together.”

Georgia had been staring into space and at the sound of his voice she looked back up, over at him. Eyes sharp like awful daggers. “You guys would help the person who got you into this sit’chiation?” 

He hesitated. “Once I would have said no.”

She grew unnaturally still. “Yeah?”

“But I’ve had a change of heart since then.”

“What madja change?” Before Max could answer, she began to sneer, and added, “was it  _ love  _ for your actual Captain, huh?”

Max swallowed, felt as though he were being squeezed to absolute death by the tension in his body. He said the only thing that he could think to say then, which was the unmitigated truth. “Yes.”

Georgia rose her hands up to her face, massaging her cheeks and eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it.  _ Young love,  _ huh?” Max could feel his face growing red. “But, uh, forgive me if I’m more n’ a bit skeptical of what you’re tellin’ me.”

“If you don’t believe what I have to say, then why don’t you talk to them?”

She cracked a grin at Max. “What, your buddy, the person that turned me in n’ the  _ first _ place?”

This was it, this was his chance to make an impact on this woman. He had been circling, dancing around Georgia. And now he could see his target in his sights. Drawing himself up as straight as he could—before Max realized that trying to look like an imposing Vicar was not the look he needed to use here; or really, much at all anymore. “Yes, Captain Castillo. They’re not what you would expect and you’ve only seen the worst side of them. If you talk to them, alone—” he paused, then added, “if you get  _ me  _ to talk to them, then we can do something. Work out some kind of a deal.”

A look of frank vulnerability crossed the face of the woman who was holding him hostage. For the first time in what felt like far too long, Max thought he was going to get out of this alright. And he could even save the people who had come to mean the whole universe to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the plot's working, I think this is a lot more action and character work than I typically do, period, let alone in a fan fiction. It feels nice going back to work on this; my original work is a drag to get through. Or maybe I should stop being a lazy bitch. Or I need to stop playing Spiritfarer and ignoring the poor souls on Wattpad who keep asking about the monstrosity (pun intended?) that is the revision of my first novel. I am so so sorry you Wattpad babies. Why can't original work be as fun to work on as fan fiction?
> 
> It has been an interesting month, and more specifically, a notable week. Without being too specific I have some stability that I've been hoping for for the past two years, and it's not perfect, but it's what I've wanted (and I have more time to work on my writing and less time to get depressive, alone at home) which is an easy enough job that doesn't leave me hating myself, like selling "banking products". Also the weekly Sunday update is now more or less set in stone, so unless we go back into quarantine (this year's been fun to work in/s) I'll be making an actual living. LET'S SEE IF IT STICKS.
> 
> So, in light of us being 5 chapters to the end (and they're going to be my typical long chapters, don't worry) I guess I'll mention that I already have a project I'm waiting to work on and share, and I am a 1 fan fiction and 1 original piece at a time person. It feels nice to share every week. I don't know if I'll be able to share another one as soon as I finish posting the next one, as I am kind of torn between two properties for rough drafting my next fan fiction (returning to the previous fandom as my first and yes pretty under the radar story was... or going into yet another fandom, this one so dead it doesn't have an officially recognized fandom on the platform or even a keyword to search for). Either way I'm going back to working on something that I think only five people are likely going to care about, but fuck it, this stuff lights my fire. I'll share some info on the actual next thing down the pipeline in a future chapter, for now I'll just tease that it's not in this fandom... or inspired by a videogame... and that its probably more than a bit of a reach for me to say that whoever's reading this has any idea what the fandom it originates from is. Only two people outside of my partner, who probably thinks I'm insane, knows what it is and might care about it.
> 
> But, cool, or whatever. As usual I ramble about nothing. We're reaching the end and I think if this is not the longest, then I think it's probably one of the crazy-ass longest fics in this fandom. I only managed to pack 1/3 of this with smut, cut me some slack. EDIT: I counted up the eventual word count of this thing: HOLY SHIT why didn't I invest this wordcount in something I can make money off of?


	37. 36. Ballad of the Broken Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All it takes is for your luck to take a turn, then everything can change in a moment.

They ran up the river, stolen guns at the ready in the hands of Neena, Ellie, and Catherine, with Parvati and Felix wielding blunt weapons that had been discovered on the bodies of some of the bastards who had tried to kill them. It ought to have been chaos but inside of their mind there was a sense of hyper-focus that Neena had fallen into. It was a state that they had experienced before from time to time; was actually a large reason why they had proven elusive to any authorities who had been sent after them during their time on Earth. But at the moment it felt more as though they were in control of it than they had ever felt before.

It felt like Neena was no longer in their body but was controlling it through a strange pinhole of experience, through which they kept their rifle at the ready, shooting goons who came running at them from the path through the river, ducking into cover with a rhythm that had sunk into Neena’s subconscious that they had learned—the chaotic rhythm of Halcyon, beating a maddened song that filled them. Everything felt slowed and the way that the bastards flying at them moved seemed to leave waving lines in their wake. It was like a waltz they were performing, dodging in one moment, charging after the others, taking surreptitious shots as if they had never been someone who had barely held a gun before they had awoken in this system in the first place. Fun, that fact.

Before they had arrived in Halcyon, Neena had prided themselves on being able to stop a fight before it could ever escalate to weapons. Or they would disarm their would-be attackers, or did a damn good job at fleeing.

Eventually the group made it out of the corridor formed of running water. Barely had time to process how astonishing it was that none of them had sustained much more than damage caused by grazed bullets, except for how Felix had been kicked as a thank you from a goon he had begun to beat. Emerging into Fallbrook proper, the group of ex-prisoners only had a moment to prepare for the next wave of people they would have to fend off.

Fighting off the urge to glance back over their shoulder, Neena shrugged off the ache that crept up their ankle from where they had had to give a big fella who had barrelled past the front line a hard kick into the river. 

“Not all of them back there are dead.” They had said it almost as a way of vocalizing something, in the wake of how discombobulated they still felt. 

Catherine, who had been prepping a fresh barrel of shells for her stolen shotgun, let out a snorting sniff and responded, “Don’t worry, once this is all done I’m gonna come back to give ‘em the SubLight Hello.”

Although Neena had a feeling that they knew what the answer was going to be, they asked, “What does that entai—”

And before they knew it, the stolen moment of peace had ended as a group of goons, having been alerted by their presence, came screaming at them. _So much for subtlety._

As they wore their way through the waves of screaming, wild people, it had occurred to Neena that they had no idea if the commotion and chaos they had caused was in any way a danger to the two who had not been present in the prison. That Max or Nyoka would find their end from one of the maniacs who came rushing at them. There was no chance to lament the fact that there had not been any other way through this, except by cutting a wave of annihilation through Fallbrook.

In the midst of wearing through the mob of ex-SubLight employees, Neena tried to steel themselves for what they could find at the end of all of this murder and mayhem. The one person they didn’t expect to find, in a broken pile not that far of a walk from the landing pad that housed _The Unreliable,_ was SAM.

Almost unrecognizable from the bent, broken metal of his body, Neena caught sight the poor, loyal automechanical for a moment before its mechanic bellowed out a surprisingly heart-wrenching, _No!_

Trying to ignore the pain that spread through them by the twin sights of Parvati, heart-broken, as well as the broken source of her agony, Neena covered the young woman as she looked like she was on the verge of collapsing, hunched next to the fallen machine.

Thankfully Neena didn’t need to shoot off would-be attackers for long, as Felix seemed to appear from the flux of roaring, raging bodies. He bent down and, with a brotherly strength that almost managed to take Neena off-guard, he scooped the distraught woman up with one arm and beat off a would-be attacker with his other one.

Neena was more than ready in response, taking up the guard as the young man tried to shake his friend out of her shock. Catherine continued to pump shells into anyone who dared to get near her. In their state, Neena barely registered the fact that the onslaught had calmed down until they heard an, unfortunately, familiar voice call out from above the din of chaos.

“Well, hell-o you two. I see you made it to the surprise party.”

Turning to look at him, Nelson Mayson’s bruised face drew Neena’s gaze like a target. And they readied their rifle to take aim at it. About to take the shot with hardly a moment of breath, they were stopped by a hand falling on their shoulder.

“Captain,” Felix almost cried out. “don’t shoot!”

About to snap at the man for halting their chance to finally do away with the traitorous leech himself, they turned and discovered where Nyoka was.

The bounty hunter half-laid, crumpled against the shorter man, who kept a tight hold around her, pressing her to him. Her usual cloud of fluffy, curly hair was matted, half of it pressed against her skull and neck and drenched in caked in mud. She had been beaten; that much was clear, from how she seemed to be hardly cognizant of what was going on around her—beyond her almost-to-be-expected stoned relaxation—and the rips and stains in her once surprisingly well-kept Hunter’s outfit.

When Nyoka turned and looked up at Neena, her face tight in pain and emotion, it was an effort to not want to take the shot anyway, their adrenaline and rage almost making their hands shake around the rifle they clutched.

The sound of Neena’s voice sounded alien to them, like their words were being parrotted by some person who was on the verge of destruction. “Let her go, now.”

Infuriatingly, Nelson only sounded as if he was on the verge of laughing as he responded, “Or what? Haven’t you folks already done more than enough killing in the last ten minutes? What’s it really matter to you, if I even up the body count a little bit?”

Nyoka finally seemed to regain some mental coherence, as she let out a loud yell and started to struggle, until Nelson grabbed ahold of some of her ruined hair, then pressed a gun against her neck. The feel of the cold metal seemed to quiet her down, although the terror and rage that filled her eyes led to her clenching her teeth into a tight grimace. 

Nelson barked at the woman, “Stop that! Me and your Captain are going to have a _civilized conversation_.”

It was Catherine who seemed to take him up on that. Sneering at the bowler-hat wearing asshole, the deposed head of Fallbrook motioned to him with her shotgun. “I can see we’re back to wearin’ our true colors, are we?”

Maybe Neena was imagining it, but it seemed as though Nelson’s face contorted for a brief moment, terror making his eyes overbright. Still he did not release the hold he kept on Nyoka. “Ms. Malin—”

“Oh, please. When you’re holding some of our freelancers and allies at gunpoint, I think you can call me Catherine.”

Nelson cleared his throat. He seemed to have nothing but trouble when it came to maintaining eye contact with his ex-employer. “Y’know, I was your ally once, too. I’ve brought money into this town, and you’ve _thanked me_ by—”

Catherine cut him off, standing in a pose that would have been strikingly professional on a woman like her, if not for how easily she held her shotgun at ease. “I’ll only tell you once. Let her go, let us end this, soon, before you bring the wrath of Lilya down on all a’ our heads.”

“Why, I don’t think you figure who it is that has the real power here—”

Nyoka bucked back against him. For one brief moment, Neena thought that he was going to let go, that Nyoka would break herself free. Then another set of hands came out, pressing a screeching bounty hunter back against her eminently punchable captor, which Nelson responded to once he regained his composure by shaking the shit out of her.

The man snapped, “Stop that right now!”

Nyoka threw her head back and let out an enraged roar. “God-fuckin’-damn-it-shit-kick-your-ass—”

Nelson grabbed onto her head, then pressed his hand over her mouth. All of which did nothing to tame the rage that had been steadily growing inside of Neena. They knew that it was in their best interest to remain calm. To try to be someone that they had been learning to be in the last half of a year.

But seeing this piece of shit manhandling their friend filled Neena with a cold rage that was utterly uncontrollable. With Nelson busy trying to keep Nyoka from breaking loose, Neena felt their hands acting of their own volition, raising their rifle up, pointing it. They were going to kill this irritating boil on their ass, pop his dumb, mustached head off— 

As soon as the shotgun went off, it was as though everything stopped. It didn’t take them long to discover what had been shot; Nyoka staggered away from the falling body of Nelson Mayson, her hair looking even worse for wear by how it was coated in gore and blood. The remnants of the aftermath of Nelson’s head had been cleaved into pieces by his former employer.

The ringing silence left in the aftermath of being next to the person who had just used her shotgun dissipated, aided by the sound of someone screaming. Neena glanced at the source of the screaming, watching as Parvati belted out a fresh one. 

Everything was fucking up, turned into a nightmare. 

Catherine huffed, hefting her stolen shotgun on her shoulder. “Not gonna lie: I’ve been fantasizing about doin’ that for a while.”

In shock as they watched Nyoka get to her feet, her eyes wide as she swabbed blood off of her face, Neena hoarsely asked, “For _how_ long, exactly?”

The woman shrugged. “Within ten minutes of knowin’ him.”

“Wait. Why did you let him set up shop in town then?”

Catherine shrugged. “Punchin’ his face used to be a major appeal to town; least, for SubLight employees who came to visit—”

Neena had not really noticed how quiet and calm things had grown until it was too late. The sound, of yet another person who Neena had the misfortune of knowing, called out from the door that led to what had been Catherine’s office. “Guns. Put ‘em down. Now.”

Even before the crowd parted to reveal the woman in the flesh, Neena knew who it was. The head of the rebellion emerged, with one of her hands firmly resting on top of the shoulder of the last member of _The Unreliable’s_ crew. The one who held the most importance to them. 

Neena forced themself to smile, even though every inch of them wanted to scream at the sight of Max underneath the weight of Georgia's massive hand. "C'mon. You know what it's like to be on Monarch." Neena motioned with the rifle, shrugging. "I'm gonna be feeling naked if I have to put this down."

They didn't expect that the woman would laugh at that, but Georgia did, shaking her head as if in disbelief. "We meet again, Captain. I'm a little curious here. How old are you, exactly, to be runnin' a ship like that?" Her hand seemed to clap harder on Max's shoulder.

Neena dug deep, pushing aside every scrap of terror and rage that wore through them. “Old enough to know better than to bite a hand that feeds me.” They managed to make their voice sound, well, _almost_ cheery.

Georgia scoffed, putting the hand that was not keeping Max in place on her hip, throwing her head back in mock shock. “My, my, is the rebel leader of an outlaw ship gonna tell me that I’m misbehavin’?”

Before Neena could answer, Catherine, who also had not made it a point to lower her gun, said, “What the hell was all a’ this? Trying to make a point?”

Neena had to fight back the desire to cringe. _Great, count on the head of a SubLight town to pour gas on top of a fire instead of putting it out._

At least it worked in getting that woman’s eyes off of them, even if just for a moment. 

“Ah, kitty Cat, I can see that you broke outta jail, an’ after I wanted to share the same hospitality you showed me. An’ you killed my Nelson Mayson. What he ever do to you?”

Catherine scoffed. “A filthy thing like you wouldn’t know hospitality if it bit you on your enormous ass. And we both know that one of us was gonna finish him off someday, it was just a game of hot potato to see who he managed to finally piss off enough to do it.”

Georgia threw her head back and laughed. Certainly not the reaction of someone who was truly sorry for the loss of an ally.

As the two had been arguing back and forth, Neena’s eyes had been drawn to Max, willed him to look at them. And, as if he could feel some sort of a pressure from Neena’s eyes on him, Max looked up, meeting their eyes.

He flicked a smile for Neena, the slightest upward raise of one side of his lips.

Instantly, a warmth; a comforting feeling that, somehow, this would be alright, filled them until Neena strangely felt like smiling, for real. They _were_ insane to feel comforted, just by the sight of Max smiling at them. But with nothing else solid to focus on besides despair and fear, Neena seized him. Wanting the hope that this would turn out alright. 

Not wanting to be caught staring at him, Neena looked over, saw Nyoka staggering to stand up fully, the two youngest members of their crew still clutching their weapons tight. And at all of the remaining goons who still surrounded them. Willing to descend on them in an instant, if Georgia wanted them dead.

The only thing keeping them from wondering how close they were to being slaughtered was the memory of Max’s oddly comforting smiles.

Catherine chuckled. “Un-be-liev-able. Some things never change, do they? Well, in light of our current situation I think a deal is in order.”

“A _deal?”_ The first real sign, of honest anger, hostility, showed in Georgia’s eyes, wide. “You killed my men, you broke outta the jail I had you in.”

The ex-head of Fallbrook didn’t look too pleased, herself. She snarled, “I could say the same to you. I think, all things considered, this makes us even.”

“Oh, like hell it does—”

Felix spoke up, cutting Georgia off—a dangerous move, given the fact that the woman still had a gun pressed to Max’s throat. “G-guys? Can we stop arguin’ like this for right now?”

Neena, their eyes stuck on the gun that was held against Max, said, “And put that down, while you’re at it.”

Maybe they were imagining it, but as the woman turned to flick a quick glance at them, Neena thought they could see something thunderous in her eyes, directed at them. “‘Why in th’ hell would I do _that_?”

Neena, trying to not look at their ship’s ex-Vicar and now, possibly, current whatever the fuck they were these days, stared instead at the source of all of their current terror, said, “He doesn’t mean anything to Catherine.”

The now-deposed head of Fallbrook didn’t hesitate. “Not an Engineer-damned thing.”

Georgia shrugged. “But he means something to you people.” She seemed to look meaningfully at Neena. “To _you.”_

Ellie, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, spoke up. “To someone on this crew, sure, but the Captain doesn’t speak for all of us.”

Neena was stopped from wanting to smash the argumentative woman in the mouth when Max, another person who had been quiet for a long time, said, “Aw, you break my heart, Doctor.” If he was going to say anything else, he was silenced when Georgia jerked him, hard against her.

Surprisingly, Catherine seemed to agree with Neena. “But these folks’re right. Put the gun away, let him go.”

Georgia’s lip lifted in a sneer, revealing a hint of stained, broken teeth. “I didn’t figure you for findin’ some morals, what with you already stealin’ what was mine.”

Catherine crossed an arm over her chest, her eyes darkening. “And what, exactly, was yours?”

Neena spoke up, realizing that if these two kept at it that nothing would ever get done. They would be standing here until Walt and Lennox came out to see who had been left standing, only to find that nothing had been solved at all. “You two need to figure out what you’re gonna do here.” Both women scoffed, then shot a look at each other in annoyance. “I don’t think this place needs to be a one person kingdom. You both want to take advantage of this opportunity that the Board has left with this planet, but I think there’s a bit of a lost opportunity here, one that Lilya doesn’t see.”

Catherine, her hostility towards her usurper momentarily forgotten, snapped, “Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”

It was strange to feel it, but for once Neena felt like throwing their hated past in one of these peoples’ faces. “Me? Oh, just the heir to the agricultural backbone of Spacer’s Choice.”

They could sense it, the turn in almost everyone assembled. Max sighed, a strangely crestfallen expression growing on his face. Even some of the goons had started to murmur between themselves, and the feel of all of the eyes on them should have made Neena become overcome with terror. Thankfully, the rage that had almost made them shake seemed to counter that. It was an almost out-of-body experience, and Neena felt like they were going on a strange autopilot, as if their outer appearance was being controlled by ADA. 

But that reminder, of the sacrifice that Neena was soon going to make, seemed to snap Catherine to the attention of what they were all really dealing with. She grimaced, rubbing a hand over her face. “I’m sure… we can work something out.”

 _At least until_ The Unreliable _is far from Monarch._

The quieter of the three who had been talking, Georgia, finally spoke up. “If you wanna talk, prove it. Drop your guns. Maybe I’ll let you interlopers go.”

Neena turned, looked at Max, at the gun that the large woman still had, pressed to his neck. She had never moved, in spite of everything, the gun that she had kept pressed to him. The ever-present threat, even beyond the people who were at Georgia’s beck and call, was the sense that at any moment she was at least powerful enough to end the life of the man who had come to mean maybe too much to the Captain of _The Unreliable._ It became clear to them, also, that Max meant something to this woman beyond being a hostage.

And beyond that, even if this woman wouldn’t let them go, Neena knew there was no way they were going to let a member of their crew become the prisoner of Georgia Mogran. 

Finally, Neena forced their gaze to look at the face of the woman who was making that threat all too real.

Georgia’s dark eyes made it hard to tell the difference between her irises and her pupils, made it hard to try to read her eyes. Everything in Neena wanted to lift the rifle up, to take a shot at her head, deal with the immediate threat to the man they cared for, the man they lo— 

Clearing their throat, Neena turned to look at the other people who were surrounded by the Fallbrook usurpers. “Alright, time to put the guns down.”

Parvati spoke up, her voice revealing her—reasonable—terror. “You know me, Captain, I don’t rightly like violence, ‘less it’s needed. But, um, are you _sure_ we should drop our guns?”

Of course, that thought had been blaring in Neena’s mind from the start. But they weren’t going to let their ship’s mechanic know that. Faking confidence they sure as shit did not feel, Neena shrugged and motioned around them. “See all these people? If we kept our guns, it’d be like a slingshot against a bazooka.”

No matter how true that was, Neena knew that it wouldn’t have been enough for Catherine. Knew that, because in spite of something as niggling as a “fact”, that if Neena were in her shoes they would have felt the same. 

“I’m puttin’ this down only when I’m dead, _Captain.”_

Neena didn’t wait for Georgia to make her terrifying presence known, found themselves bellowing the first thing that came to mind. “ _Your_ damn boyfriend isn’t standing there with a gun on him!” There was no time to regret or really reflect on what they had just announced. Taking in the sight of Catherine’s wide, shocked eyes, Neena reached forward, grabbing the woman’s gun, ignoring her sharp cry as she followed it up with throwing the firearms onto the broken pathway with a resounding _clatter._

Only when Neena looked up did they think about what they had just said. The surprised look, almost, strangely, identical on the face of both the woman pressing the gun to the man’s neck and on the man himself. 

It was Georgia who spoke up. “Thank you for that.”

* * *

Georgia looked at the Captain of the ship that she had used to, finally, break their way into the well-kept fortress that Catherine had stolen from her. Some part of her had almost felt thankful to that person, in spite of the fact that they had undoubtedly led to her being captured in the _first_ place. Oh, and had led to some of her boys getting slaughtered in their own jailbreak.

But even if she had been thankful to them, to any of these outsiders to Monarch who had come in and tried to keep her from what was rightfully Georgia’s, there was something, some knowledge of something that the ex-holy man and this person shared—something that she would never have—that felt like a final straw, even in the face of what could have been a seemingly once-impossible partnership with the woman she had spent too many years hating.

She deserved to have someone who loved her, the way those two looked at each other. The honest, personal rage that she could see on Neena’s face, visible in their eyes, even if they were trying to mask it. The way, also, that Max had been frank and honest about his feelings about Neena. 

Her town. Her employees. The man she felt the strongest for that she had ever felt about anyone. 

She was sick of having to give it all up, lose it. Compromise. 

With the gun still in their hand, Georgia reached up, running her scarred knuckles against the soft, clean weight of Max DeSoto’s hair.

She looked at Neena, let the Captain see the expression change on her face before she rose her hand up, then brought it down, swiftly, on the back of Max’s head. Felt a bitter joy at watching as the man who would have never been hers collapsed to the ground, then the gut-wrenching cry that could have only belonged to the person who had denied her yet another thing that she would never have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The weather's nice for a change around here. Two weeks of not being worried about my immediate future--and news I just got today, that my student loans are going to be pushed till next year--have done some good to my emotional state. Things are slowing down for me, more than they have for half a year, and I'm grateful for it. I know I'm lucky to not be flailing like a lot of people are at the moment. 
> 
> Besides that, for fun I, unfortunately, started playing *Wasteland 3*, and there goes my free time. 
> 
> I guess things are getting a little dark with the story, definitely darker than I was planning to go when I started writing this. But I was real happy with what I wrote, when it came time to look it over. I hope you guys like it too.


	38. 37: Running Gun Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suddenly, they realize that the broad and huge universe may as well have been comprised of only one very particular celestial body

Nothing mattered. Not a single—god or Engineer, for that matter— _ damn  _ thing could have ever mattered.

Neena let that sensation possess them as they were reaching over, grabbing onto not any of the guns they had dropped to the ground but was pulling the modded tossball stick that Felix held in his limp grasp, barely registering the shock on his face as they took it. After all, the one thing Neena had always counted on, when the chips were down and it was a matter of life or death, was their ability to beat the shit out of someone.

_ Dead. _

Here she was, a monster, symbolic of so much of the oppressive weight of the Halcyon system in one imposing, self-centered form, right in front of them. With the man they loved, laying still in a crumpled mess at her feet.

Neena forgot about the others, about their own safety, as they ran up to the obviously astonished giantess. For the first time in their life Neena didn’t just want to get a little bit of revenge, let off steam, defend themselves. They wanted to kill her. 

_ No _ ; Neena wanted to obliterate Georgia, destroy every molecule of the thing that had tried to take Maxillion DeSoto from the world.

Having never even played a single round of tossball Neena nevertheless acted with speed and power that might have surprised the man who lay on the ground if he had been able to see it. It was due to the shock, of seeing Max getting beaten by just one blow of Georgia’s giant fist, and of small Neena rushing her, that stopped anyone from even hoping to react in time to do anything.

The first blow Neena made with the stick barely seemed to register. Georgia, rising a hand up to beat at the racket head as it returned to land another blow, looked more like she was trying to swat off the unwanted attention of a fly than trying to defend herself. It was just that first hit that seemed to unphase her, with the next one actually managing to make her heave backward. And in the flurry that followed each single blow didn’t seem to be affecting her too much. But, taken altogether, Georgia, whether due to the attack or to the surprise at the sudden assault, flinched. Providing Neena an opportunity with a continued flush of rabid swinging and smashing to land more than a few blows, right at her face.

Not that that would have stopped Georgia for long, let alone do much damage. 

Neena continued to beat into the woman with the tossball stick, hardly phased by the fact that the woman regained control of herself enough to begin shielding her head with one of her massive forearms. The first haphazard swing she made, with her other arm, swung wildly past Neena.

The two tried to hurt the other for what felt to Neena like a nightmarishly long amount of time but to everyone else, it only lasted for a number of seconds.

Someone yelled out, and Neena, who was trapped in a whirlwind of adrenaline-fueled rage, was unaware of the people who had seemingly woken up from their shock all around them and started to look like they were about to start to fight the people they had surrounded. Thankfully, Catherine had grabbed her gun back from where Neena had thrown it onto the ground and also took hold of the rifle that Neena had discarded.

* * *

“Here,” she shouted, near throwing the rifle at Felix, who was so stunned that he almost missed grabbing it. Before the young man could respond, Catherine turned around, about to take her first shot at the woman that Neena was trying to destroy, with little actual effect. 

As she raised her shotgun barrel up, Neena found that their frantic, but the ineffective blows, were finally met with a decisive one from Georgia. 

It was a hard punch, even if it was a flailing one, landing on the side of Neena’s head. It sent them slumping to the ground, the tossball stick slipping out of their hand as they crumpled on the ground within two feet from where Max splayed on the ground face first. 

Catherine froze for one moment, the sight of her unexpected ally falling to the ground and not getting back up, stopping even the bloodlust that had begun pumping through her veins. She had known that Georgia was a one-woman wrecking machine but it had been impossible to imagine that someone like Neena Castillo could end up the victim of the woman that Catherine had foolishly underlooked.

It was just enough time for the bloodthirsty mob to descend on them, leading to Parvati hollering, a prelude to all of them about to have to, finally, fight for their lives.

As Catherine steeled herself to start blasting, the sound, of someone letting out a bellowing, guttural cry, brought the woman to turn to look at the cause of noise that they could hardly believe had come from a human.

Georgia was half bent over at the waist, holding onto her head, her eyes shut. At her side stood the person that the woman seemed, just moments earlier, to have dealt a serious blow to, tossball stick back in their grasp. The Captain of  _ The Unreliable _ looked like they had been half-destroyed, with there being some sort of obvious damage dealt to their face so that blood was running off of their head, staining their clothes.

They looked deranged, like a fresh corpse that had been given life, just enough to administer revenge.

Catherine only had a moment to realize what was happening before she witnessed Neena raising the tossball stick; again and again, bringing it down with shocking, barbaric strength onto the back of Georgia’s head and her shoulders. 

It was a shock, to watch the ruined-looking person swing the stick in that primal rhythm, delivering damage to the woman who just moments before seemed to brush off whatever damage they had done to her. One or both of them were screaming, bellowing; the sound intermingling and raging against the other, making a torment of sound that felt like hearing trapped canids tearing each other to pieces.

Catherine was hardly aware of it but everyone else had stopped, were watching as the seemingly dead or at least badly beaten outsider continued to bring the heavily reinforced stick down, again and again, on Georgia, who could only stagger and bend under the weight of the assault. It felt like everything ceased to exist, except for the sight of the two locked in horrible combat,. Then the woman seemed to be about to regain strength, stepping away from the flurry of attacks originating from her attacker. 

Like Georgia was a force, one that couldn’t be destroyed with something like mere violence. 

But, unexpectedly she suddenly, finally, dropped, falling to the ground like a sack of wet cement. Only then did Catherine realize how disfigured her head, never one that belonged to a beauty by any stretch of the imagination, but nevertheless one that had looked  _ normal _ , had become. Now Georgia looked like the monster she had become, out in the wilds of Monarch.

There was a brief pause, and Catherine could sense it around them. The fight had gone out of all of these people who were programmed to be followers, having lost the rabid wolf that had run them ragged. The battle was over.

Half-expecting Neena to drop the stick, Catherine flinched as she watched the bleeding, ragged person slouch until they were positioned almost over the fallen leader of the SubLight exiles. They brought the stick down, the sound it made as it connected with flesh wet and stomach-churning.

The woman was dead; had to be. Yet Neena continued to be relentless, smashing what was left of Georgia with a rabid heat. No one said a thing or seemed to move, watching in shock as the person that Catherine had learned, earlier, was the lost heiress to the lost Urraca Family Union fortune beat what was essentially at this point a corpse, the sound of their heaving grunts the only sound she could hear, aside from the sound of the stick connecting with flesh, again and again.

Reality seemed to return to her as Catherine heard a sharp  _ snap _ and the tossball stick splintered in two pieces, the portion that had killed Georgia landing behind Neena in a backward swing, blood-splattered. But the Captain did not stop, continued to brutalize the woman with the shard-ended stick, hitting and stabbing in a frenzy.

Even for Monarch, even for the  _ wilds _ of this planet from which SubLight did its backroom dealings and resource gathering, the continued brutality of the annihilation of Georgia’s body managed to shock the callous Catherine Malin, almost as much as the sight of the Captain getting back up and administering the damage.

Someone moved finally, and Catherine realized that it was the members of _The_ _Unreliable’s_ crew, running to their Captain. For a moment—a split second—she considered warning them against getting near the person holding the bloody, gore-emblazoned stick, worried that in their frenzy that Neena might not recognize the difference between friend or foe. 

One of them was yelling, “Stop!”, and another had come up to them, was grabbing, pulling them bodily away from the woman they had murdered, was saying, “Your face, your  _ eye _ , it’s—”

Catherine didn’t have a chance in that moment to see what they might have meant, as Neena somehow managed to wrench themselves free, pushing aside those who stood between them and the fallen ex-Vicar. In an instant, Catherine went from shock and horror to pity and a sadness that managed to touch even her, watching as the violence-touched person dropped to their knees, gathering the fallen man into their arms.

He was still, even as Neena turned him around, face up in their arms. It was the first time that Catherine could see the injuries to both, and it made her flinch to see how one of Neena’s eyes seemed to be  _ gone,  _ or in some way smashed. But even that damage was undoubtedly not as dire, compared to whatever must have happened to the man they sat there, cradling. 

Catherine didn’t know if Neena was mourning his death, or was somehow trying to will him awake, but it was clear as the Captain bent forward and pressed their mouth, then their face to his, that the man meant more to them than a crewmate or a friend.


	39. 38. Empty Sky

It was noisy, some distance away from where he lay on his back. Max DeSoto groaned, rolling over. Gradually he became aware of a few facts in sluggish succession. 

He was on a bed, he was alone in said bed. Judging by the lumpiness, it was a familiar mattress he was laying on; the one which he had, in the last few months, come to think of as his own. At least, the one he used at the  _ pleasure _ of his Captain. 

And there was a throbbing pain which was radiating from his head.

As soon as he allowed his immediate condition to sink in Max felt his mind jump to what he couldn’t infer in the moment. He had been knocked down—unconscious, more than likely—by his captor. He had failed, it would seem, in getting her to come to a realization of how foolish her goal was; at least, if he could take his current condition as any indication of how the negotiations had proceeded. By  _ verity _ , he could hardly recall how any of it had gone, even _ before _ he had been hit. 

Grimacing, Max tested moving, then felt his hands around his head. Checking to see if there was anything leaking or had fallen off of his aging body. Once he confirmed that all that plagued him as far as he could tell was a pain much more severe than a headache but, seemingly, nothing much more, Max rolled on his side.

He hesitated, then Max sat up, one of his hands still cradling his head. He became aware that the light noise he had been aware of, existing vaguely behind the horrid waves of pain thumping his head, was the sound of people’s voices murmuring outside of his room. 

It all came back to Max. He had to get up, to find out what had happened. Find out if Neena was alright.

Not allowing any time to dwell on the fact that that thought had come paramount to him, as Max stood up he found that he could walk just fine. Whatever had happened to him had been done to just his head. Not a comfort, no, but he was  _ breathing.  _ By Halcyon standards, he was doing damn fine for himself.

Outside of his room Max found first the ship’s doctor, sitting against the wall to the left side of his door. When she realized he was walking out she hurried to Max’s side, her eyes wide in a shock that was so rare on the face of a woman who prided herself on looking, always, like she was someone who had seen and done everything—twice.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she said in a near-croo, as if she were addressing a frightened animal, drawing her hands out as if she meant to hold his head. “Engineer-be-damned, you’re  _ awake. _ ”

Max could forgive himself for a bit of sardonic wit. “One would hope that my dreams don’t include awakening on the same ship I spend my days on.”

Whatever Ellie was going to say—it looked like she was going to curse him out—was interrupted when the sound of a voice he easily recognized cried out.

“I c-can’t believe it; Mr. DeSoto, is that  _ you?” _

Even a recovered jerk—well,  _ mostly _ recovered—like Max could hardly stand the same line of exclamation in his poor state. “Yes, yes,” he said, turning to watch as the ship’s mechanic came running up to him from the kitchen, her eyes wide as if she had seen a ghost. “I’m fine, now can someone tell me where the damned Captain is?”

If he wasn’t so irritated and in pain, Max might have thought before he asked where the person he loved, with violent enthusiasm was, by referring to them as  _ the damned Captain. _

When he saw the simultaneous reaction from both women Max immediately regretted saying it. About to apologize, it was Parvati who said it. “Captain Castillo. They’re…” She trailed off, and he could see that something was wrong. 

But, Parvati Holcolmb wasn’t trying to tell him that Neena, a sometimes self-described cockroach of a person,  _ was— _

Ellie took up the initiative. It was a thing which Max ought to have expected from a doctor, to be damned good at delivering bad news quickly. “They’re downstairs. If you want to see them—maybe you should hurry. But I think—”

It was time for the ex-Vicar to make a decisive choice, between trying to deal with whatever damage had been committed to him or to see Neena and whatever was happening with their situation. He chose the latter without a moment of thought. If he was nothing else, Max was a damn loyal disciple to the new god he had chosen to worship.

As he went down the stairs Max became aware that someone who wasn’t a crew member was standing in his path. Which surprised him; with the unwanted and notable caveat of Georgia Mogran, no one who wasn’t a member of the crew had ever come on board, as far as he could recall. Well, no one, except they happened to be livestock meant for the black market.

Catherine Malin seemed to have been staring down the stairwell, leaned against the railing. She must have been wrapped up in something because she didn’t see Max approaching. It wasn’t until he was trying to walk past her than the woman finally seem to react, and dramatically. 

“By all the gods of the new worlds! You walk among us!” Max was about to walk past her when the woman reached over, grabbing onto him. “Been two days, you still look like a fucking mess; at least you’re nothin’ to compare to that maniac you call your  _ Captain.  _ Never thought I’d say that, after what you looked like.”

That choice of words stopped Max in his tracks more than her grabbing him could have. He looked at Catherine, saw her genuine astonished expression. Even though he figured he should have kept going and not asked it, Max felt the question leaving his mouth before he could do anything about it. Like seeing his Captain for himself. 

“What happened?”

Catherine sucked in her cheeks, then a low, reedy chuckle came from her lungs. A sign that things had, indeed, not gone well. “Well… good news is, only one person died.” Seeing the horrified look on Max’s face, she quickly added, “Only one who died was Georgia. And, damn,” she broke off with another one of those odd, discomforting chuckles. “she died  _ hard.  _ Law’s sake, I never thought I’d see a human beaten into ground beef.”

Max felt heat creeping up his neck as violent enthusiasm rushed through him, and hard. “Damn it, Catherine, is Neena alright?” His hands had balled up into fists at his side without thought, all memory of the good  _ Counselor DeSoto  _ forgotten.

She seemed to examine him too closely for Max’s comfort before Catherine looked away, coughing. “Well, depends, what you mean by “alright”.”

Wanting to smack her across the face instead Max hurried past her and down the stairs. Could hear their voices even before he was off the stairs, originating from the cockpit. As Max turned into the room he saw them, standing further in, closer to ADA’s display. He took in all of them—the two near-identically dressed strangers, the stricken-looking ADA— 

—and Neena, turned away from him.

Max rushed in without announcing himself, nearly wrapping his arms around the person he had been sure he had lost, for good. Something stopped him from doing it; the energy in the little room felt strange. Even before he got a chance to see Neena Castillo’s face for himself. 

The two strangers beckoned toward Max—they were wearing black gloves, giving their pale skin a strange, disconcerting appearance. The sunglasses-wearing man said, “Look, Lennox, Helen of Troy stirs. Their doctor’s technique was more impressive than first glance would warrant.”

Before Max could respond to that strange description of him, the other one, a woman with very closely shorn hair, said, “I get the feeling that more than a little camaraderie was inspiration enough to do her best. And, after we gave up on it, there's time enough for goodbyes after all, then.”

Neena turned around and Max saw it before they reached up, covering the half of their face that had surprised him to see. A flash of white—a bandage?—had been stuck to almost the entire upper portion of one side of Neena’s face.

Max acted without finesse or thought, reaching over and pulling their hand away as if the only people in the room were him and Neena. As he did he could see the dismay, shining in their remaining uncovered dark, beautiful eye.

His mouth had fallen open, and Max asked it without thought. “For verity’s sake, what’s happened to you?”

Neena opened their mouth, the unbandaged eye brimming with tears. Softly, they said, “Guess I’m not gonna be going to a ball anytime soon, huh?”

Before Max could react to that the strange woman walked up to Neena’s side, resting a gloved hand on the shorter Captain’s upper arm. “Oh, tosh. You ought to find that eye and take it as a trophy.” Her mouth flashed with a show of her perfect white teeth. “Especially if it was earned in the protection of someone you love.”

Again, Max ignored some of what was said, instead focusing on one aspect. He gazed at Neena, disbelief coursing through him. “Did you lose your eye?” He could see it, in how Neena had dropped their gaze to the ground. Shame; it shook Max to witness in his proud Captain’s—his lover’s—face. Not for the first time Max forgot that he was no longer a follower of his previous religious system as he swore, “By the great design—are you hurt, are you in pain?” He strode up to them as he had been wanting to do, but instead of embracing Neena and refusing to let go, Max cupped either side of their face to examine them like a precious treasure.

Neena flinched and pulled away, sucking their lips in. “I-it’s fine. The pain’s manageable; Ellie fixed me up, it just needs to heal.” They even managed a seemingly noncommittal half-shrug.

The strange man spoke up again. “Lucky that was  _ all _ they lost.”

The woman chimed in, “Georgia’s blows are like that of a hammer. To have one, let alone the both of you, survive her attack, is nothing short of miraculous, truly.”

The throbbing pain in Max’s head made sense, then. She had hit him; whether she had attempted to kill or simply knock him out, he didn’t know. Although, hazy as his memory was, he had a feeling that Georgia had meant to kill him. Retribution, for him never giving her what she wanted.

His lack of ability to tame the angry woman did not seem to be a resounding call for his abilities as a counselor, that much was true. But Max’s true concern was not for him or for a damaged person he had ultimately failed to reach out to.. He gazed at the person who, if what the strange woman had hinted at, had saved his life, wondering what in the hell they had been thinking to risk their life for  _ him _ . He was about to ask them that when the question dried up in his throat. 

Neena was  _ alive,  _ and so was he. What else could matter?

But, despite the missing eye, there was something to Neena, a further sense of shame, that drew the attention of a man who had once been inside of their head.

The man and the woman came up next to Neena, so that both people stood on either side of the Captain of  _ The Unreliable.  _ When the man reached, resting his hand on their upper arm, Neena flinched softly at the touch. He said, “Mr. DeSoto’s here. Awake before any of us would have thought possible. What wonders never cease.”

The woman nodded and gave Max a strangely polite half-bow, a smile fitting sharply along the lines of her lipsticked lips. “Indeed. Worse for wear, but very much alive.”

“Indeed,” the man added. “I would say, however, that he could do with a wash.”

The woman sighed, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling in a look that was wistful. “Oh, but don’t all of us? Monarch is a spectacularly filthy cesspit. And spending days here, waiting to see if the ex-holy man could pull through, certainly wore on my sense of  _ goodwill. _ ”

In spite of the odd situation a thought occurred to Max.  _ Would that I could introduce these people to a place called Edgewater. _

Neena cleared their throat, gaining the attention of the two strange visitors and Max. Their voice was lower, husked with emotion. “Can I just…? I want to say good-bye.”

_ Good-bye _ ? At first Max thought they were talking about the strangers. Then he could see it, the dull sadness that reflected in their visible eye. He couldn’t speak, felt like he could hardly breathe.

The man ducked his head, said, “Well, you have your chance.”

Neena closed their eye. “In private.”

The woman’s smile strained. “Dear Lady Urraca, I’m afraid we cannot let you out of our custody even for a moment. Think of it as an admittance of your well-trod resourcefulness, and a desire to not underestimate anyone in your crew.” She waved her hand towards Max. “Say what you want to while you have the chance.”

The Captain, forever a spitfire, now looked, strangely, like the ever-present fire that lived in them had been snuffed out. They seemed to be struggling for what to say for what felt like the first time since Max had known them. At least, in a context that had nothing to do with the strange relationship they shared with their ship’s ex-Vicar.

He felt a panic coiling through him as a refrain beat its way into his already pained head.  _ They’re leaving. They’re leaving me. They’re leaving the ship.  _

He grabbed a hold of Neena almost pulling them against him, like he had wanted to do a few moments before, taking a few steps backward as if he were very close to just kidnapping them. 

The Captain looked up at him, blinking, their remaining eye wide as Max asked what he desperately needed to know. “What is going on?”

Their soft lips parted, and at first he thought they couldn’t speak. “I promised myself to these people. They’re going to—take me to meet with someone on the Board.” The ghost of some sort of sad smile started on the edge of their lips. “Find out how much an over one-hundred year old, one-eyed heiress is worth in this market. Maybe SubLight can make bits off of me as a traveling oddity, like they used to do in the old Earth days, in a traveling show.”

Max began to feel the burn of tears in his eyes and instead of wiping them away, he clenched his teeth tight. “Quit joking with me, Captain Castillo. You’re not going anywhere.” He tried before he failed to smile. Fuck, he was bad at smiling genuinely, let alone when he was trying to pretend.

The woman, almost forgotten about as Max stared at hole into the person he could not envision losing, spoke up. “They worked out a deal with us.”

The man added, “A more than  _ generous _ deal. One life for multiple others.”

Max shook his head. “That deal’s off. They’re not going anywhere.”

Neena said his name in a sigh, a sad, forlorn, defeated sound. 

The strange man said, “That decision is not yours to make.”

He would have agreed with that if he didn’t already know how much this ship, this life, meant to them. Max said it without a moment of hesitation. “You want someone? Take me.”

Neena said his name again, this time sounding, weakly, like they were rebutting them. 

The woman spoke up. “Don’t waste your time. We don’t want to turn your entire gallery of rogues in. We only want to take with us what was promised for our services.”

As if Neena were nothing more than a commodity. 

Max snapped his gaze over to the woman, his voice tight. “And what services, exactly, were those?”

The man answered, “The Captain agreed to coming with us of their own volition. I recommend you do not make this more difficult than it already is.”

Max could feel it, his anger rising in him until it was a wonder he wasn’t throttling one of the people who said they were here to take Neena away. As far as he was concerned, _ that _ possibility was still a potential. “ _ Difficult?  _ What the fuck do you people think is “difficult”? If it’s kidnapping someone who’s  _ very much _ needed in their own damn ship, then I’d like to see what you think of as truly hard.”

The woman flashed another one of those strange, off-putting smiles at him. “And  _ now  _ I can see what they see in you.”

Max felt his face growing mottled with heat. “I beg your pardo—”

Neena seemed to regain the ability, or maybe it was the will, to speak. They withdrew from his grasp and turned, looked at their lover, their eye sharp. “It’s already been decided. Max, I need you to—”

He so rarely forgot his place, as a crew member aboard the ship of the person he most respected—loved. But, given the circumstances, even with a clearer head, Max wouldn’t have faulted himself for doing what he did then. He stared at the two who were here to take Neena away, and said, “You can’t take them. Neena Castillo is the Captain of  _ The Unreliable,  _ they are the sole saving grace of the colonists aboard  _ The Hope. _ ”

Expecting one of them to say something in response, Max was surprised when Neena spoke up, their voice iron strong. “Just because I go doesn’t mean that it’s the end for  _ The Hope.  _ As long as the crew keeps at it to help that crazy old man, I know you guys can do it.”

Max turned his attention to his Captain, feeling like he could hardly believe what he was hearing. Since  _ when _ did Neena talk about giving up—least of all, on the colonists aboard  _ The Hope?  _ It felt like he was talking to a different person than the one he had made love with on Monarch. Still, he wasn’t ready to lose them.

Not now, not ever.

He scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, I don’t think you’re going anywhere, not if any of us have anything to say about it—”

Neena surprised him; reaching over, grabbing ahold of one of his hands, slipping their overwarm, slender little one around his larger one, pulling until Neena was embracing his arm. The feel of them, surrounding his arm, with the soft hint of their bra-bound breasts pressing against him, shocked him into a sudden, yearning silence.

They were staring into his eyes, their one remaining, overbright eye searing into him beyond the layer of unshed tears, demanding his unbroken attention. 

In a soft, persistent voice, Neena said, “Don’t end it on this note. You’ve all taught me so much. You…” for a brief moment he thought they were going to let those tears fall, but as soon as it had appeared the moment of weakness went away, leaving only the determined, almost scarily strong person that Max had looked forward to getting to know better. “We both know what we’ve left behind, but don’t let that be enough of a reason to keep from changing this System for the better.” They shrugged, losing eye contact as it looked as though they were blinking back tears. “No matter what we need to make things better in this godforsaken place; give these people a future to look forward to.”

_ When did it become your job to sacrifice yourself for any of these lost fools? And at the expense of what we’ve made, together? _

It went against everything inside of Max, to even consider either of them sacrificing something so rare and beautiful for some so-called  _ greater good _ .

Perhaps this was some of that "karma" that Neena themself had once thrown at him as an insult; that his nasty, selfish religion, and the way it had turned him into a conceited, cruel man, would one day come to bite him in the ass.

Before he could ask what they were thinking, to want to give all of themself to a System too rotten to deserve them, the strange woman, almost forgotten about, said, “Tell him what you need to, darling.”

Max almost expected Neena to declare the thing that Max had known for a long while now, the emotions they shared between them. Had technically already shared in the heat of the moment But, after Neena sighed, instead they said, “I’ve chosen you to be the Captain of  _ The Unreliable.” _

For some reason hearing Neena talk about leaving with these people before had not struck home for Max. Had felt like a possibility that couldn’t possibly happen. But hearing Neena talk about passing control over woke him up, managed to even douse the fire that had burned hot in him, the instinctual need to take possession of the person he craved, needed to protect.

He shook his head. “No, sorry, I’m not the Captain.”

Instead of yelling at him—damn, but there had been a time when he would have expected them to try to _ cold cock _ him for continuing to argue with them—Neena softly said, “The Halcyon System was ruined, because people like me—all of your ancestors back on Earth, or at least the ones who had a chance to do  _ something _ —instead chose to do nothing. To let this place become a diseased clone of Earth. Nothing will ever feel right here, until I do something to stop it, make a change. I can’t run away from the wreck I left on Earth; I had a chance to do something for once when it meant I could save the ship. So, I did it. Maybe wherever I end up I can make people listen to me, they can learn from the mistakes I made.” They sighed, a shuddering sound that sounded like they were letting go of something that Neena had carried for a long, long time. “Take the position, or the dream, everything I wished for, dies here with me leaving.”

Max felt a thickness forming in his throat. It seemed as though his heart were dying as he realized, increasingly, that this was real;  _ real _ , and was going to happen. He grabbed Neena by their shoulders, pushed them into his chest. Realized, as he felt a trembling, quivering sensation there, that Neena had started to cry.

He had never comforted this extraordinarily strong person before, never held them when they were crying; at least since that fateful day on Byzantium. It was a different sensation, felt oddly more intimate than almost anything they had done previously. And it wasn’t anything that he had had any experience with, even with anyone that he had once considered to be a member of his flock, having accomplished what he had once thought of as a good deal of comforting physical contact with handshakes and meaningful eye contact. Still, it felt natural to bring his hand up, to run it through the unbound mess of their hair, soothing them any way he could through instinct. Even with the other two in the cockpit here to watch them closely.

They smelled warm, familiar, even under the weight of the acrid, metallic smell of blood and antibacterial wash. Almost made him want to crush Neena to him harder. To somehow make her feel the weight of all of the time he had felt he had wasted in his life before he was given the honor of meeting them. Even of the time he lamented knowing them and having ever been cruel, or callous, towards them.

He couldn’t say goodbye to them, but he also couldn’t hurt them. His desire to be there for them emotionally, no matter what, led to him saying it. “If this is what you want…” He had to stop, biting back a sob that threatened to wrack through him. “Then I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

Neena turned their head, letting out a long, huffing breath of air. “Tell ADA that you’re Captain Hawthorne.”

Max clenched his jaws, having to look up. He had started to cry; it was a look he had seen on his own face before, knew that it wasn’t a pleasant expression to see on some old man’s face; red-skinned and with tear-glazed cheeks. Not how he wanted this person, among all in the System, to see Max Desoto. He looked up at the ceiling, feigning that he needed to take in a deep breath, was trying to find the strength he needed to not break down, holding the person he loved; wanted to make a partner of more than anything he had ever wanted anything. Even his own freedom.

He took in the still upset-looking face that ADA had generated on her display. As he did, though, Max saw also a look that was shared between the two SubLight representatives—or, at least, he saw the look in the face of the one who wasn’t wearing those round-lensed sunglasses. The two intruders had retreated further into the cockpit by a few quiet steps while Max’s attention had been focused on his runaway Captain. 

He was looking at his compatriot, and although Max could not make out the expression in his eyes, Max could tell, based on the look the woman was giving him, that it was a look that displeased her based on the tight frown that she wore on her red, red lips.

Before he could ask what was going on between the two, Neena spoke, drawing his attention down to their face, into that beautiful, untouched eye. “I just—there’s something I’ve been wanting to say. I’ve been selfish, stupid; everything I once accused you of being.”

Max scoffed, fell back on humor where he had begun feeling far too raw, emotionally disturbed to cope with Neena talking to them like this. “So what you’re saying is that you’re now a follower of Scientism?”

That got a chuckle from Neena, likely caused by surprise. They sniffed, dark brown eye wet with tears yet to fall. “You tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. I just—wanted you to know that I was scared. Being alone never gave me anything to lose. I thought it would be the worst feeling in the world, to give yourself up to something, and…” They stopped, and Max was surprised that they had said that out loud, didn’t fault them for losing their nerve.

And he knew how much it meant for them to say this to him. And how much it must hurt, in light of what was to come. 

He drew them closer to him, wishing he could absorb them, keep them from ever leaving him. Without thinking, Max was murmuring, “I know, I know.” He did, too. After all, the fear of being abandoned after being taken in by something he loved had been what had driven him his whole life.

Neena surprised him, partially wrenching themselves loose before they looked up at him. He could see the strength in their remaining eye, knew that they wanted, needed to say what they were about to tell him. “You can’t give me an out anymore, you deserve to hear it.” They sucked in their lips, the tears that had been welling up in their eye spilling over, and Max realized that the damaged eye, hidden beneath the bandage, was still able to produce tears as he watched a thin river pierce its way down their cheek. “You mean everything to me, everything to the people on this ship. And I love you.”

Max knew this, had heard them saying it in the throes of passion and knew that there had been a seed of truth to it, even if Neena had lied to him about it afterward. So why did hearing them say it, like this, make him start to cry fresh, break down when he had told himself he wouldn’t?

He ducked his head and found himself responding in turn. “I love you, too.” Max’s body was shaking, and he was vaguely aware of the fact that if this was the last time they would see each other, that this was a horrible note to leave on, for Neena to remember him by. A heart-broken old man, too lovestruck to commit to the last wish that they had requested of him with any dignity. 

“Fine, I’ll do it, if it has to be this way.”

He felt their fingers, sliding under his chin, raising his face so that their remaining eye could lock onto his gaze. They said, “You’re so beautiful.” That made Max choke back a laugh, not expecting it. “I mean it,” Neena persisted, waiting till Max looked back at them, stopped laughing. “This is where you belong, not on some piece of land. At least, not yet.”

He couldn’t help it, felt the words coming out of him. “Wish you had a chance to meet me when I was younger. When I was more… impressive. You fixed me. How am I supposed to do this without you?”

Neena smiled, a sad, faraway look in their eye that felt like some kind of a severance between the two of a bond that Max had gotten so used to that he barely realized that it had existed in the first place. “You fixed yourself, the magic was all you. You’re fucking  _ amazing _ , you know. And you get better with age.”

Max closed his eyes. “I’m not going to leave you forever, you know. I’ll be coming for you, once we awaken  _ The Hope—” _

The sound, of one of the two whom Max had almost forgotten about, stopped Max as he looked up at her in surprise, still clutching Neena to him. 

“Alright, I can’t handle this kind of torture, unlike Walt.”

“Walt” spoke up, his voice almost whiny, defensive. “Oh, come on. We never see any good drama. I think we deserve  _ some  _ payment for our help, Lennox.”

“Lennox” did not sound happy. When Max looked at her, he saw that she had crossed her arms over her chest, eyes dark with annoyance. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. Lilya will want a report, we’ve spent too long out here without having anything to show for it.” Before Walt could speak, his mouth open, Lennox quickly added, “Anything of  _ worth,  _ Walt. We have nothing to show for the chaos that took place down on Monarch.”

Neena turned around in his arms, their back pressed against his chest. Even in the situation, Max could not help but notice that they had not thrown his arms off. “What are you two talking about?”

It was the long-silent member of the room who, finally, spoke up—the first smile that Max had seen on the generated face that served as ADA’s outward appearance in what felt like too,  _ too _ long. “The  _ guests _ have been lying to the both of you. They aren’t going to take Captain Hawthorne.”

It felt like the two embracing people exhaled a trapped breath at the same time, like they had become one person. Max asked, “What… what are you two here for?”

Walt opened his mouth, about to say something, but ADA cut him off before he had a chance to. “They had no intention of taking anyone with them. They are playing with us.”

Walt cleared his throat, then said, with what looked like him fighting off the urge to smile, “Not everything revolves around cold credits, even in Halcyon. Some things are more important.”

That turn of phrase struck Max unexpectedly—ADA putting herself into the same boat as them—but if he had wanted to make a point of it, Neena spoke up. In spite of how angry they sounded, they did not pull themselves loose from his grasp. “You mother _ fuckers _ . Why did you do this to me?”

Lennox spoke, taking a step forward, that odd smile on her lips as she looked at the both of the stricken, injured members of the crew of  _ The Unreliable.  _ “We couldn’t appear weak, out on Fallbrook, in front of so many people who could be some of Lilya Hagen’s eyes and ears, beyond even us.”

Walt added, “Lilya does love to have contingencies, backdoors, backups, traps…”

Neena spoke, the weight they made in Max’s arms a strange comfort even as they almost roared at the two guests. “You were afraid that your  _ boss _ is spying on you? Spying on her own  _ spies _ ?”

Walt shrugged. “Such is the life of someone who has to make a profit in a system predisposed to keeping things the status quo.”

Lennox smiled broadly for the first time that Max had ever seen, a truly discomforting sight. “And besides, she has reason for her paranoia. Here we are, speaking of decisions we’ve already made, without her knowledge or consent.”

“But… why?” Neena’s question reflected the one that was in Max’s mind as well.

“Just like you said to him: things ought to change, or at least, get a chance to change. And, even if Lilya would disapprove of the immediate decision we’ve made, we believe that the choice, of giving Welles every chance he has to wake up the rest of the colonists, is the correct one to make for the long run, not just for an immediate profit.”

Max jerked, surprised. “How do you know about—”

Lennox rose her hand up, stopping him with the sight of her black gloved hand. “Please. Don’t insult our intelligence. This close to the end of Captain Castillo’s goal, it’s safe to say that there’s barely anyone who keeps their eyes peeled who doesn’t at least know that Welles has had something to do with the chaos associated with the outlaw ship that’s been doing more than its fair share of going against the Board’s wishes—whether intentionally or not.”

Walt spoke up. “Don’t worry. We can’t share too much on the subject, we are, after all, barely more than finely honed tools at Hagen’s disposal, but I can tell you that for the time being, until things change, Lilya already has no intention on making a move on anyone while it’s not profitable to do so. Unless we tell her differently.”

That was when they became aware of someone who had entered the room, and Max could see her, leaning against the doorway. The woman whose town they had successfully taken back. 

Catherine said, “I hope we can get the show on the road. I don’t like to think of the mess I’ve got left for me to deal with outside while I keep hanging out in here to see if that guy,” she motioned to Max. “would pull through.”

Neena had not turned to look at Catherine, was still addressing the two who stood, further into the cockpit. “Why help? Why did you help us?”

Lennox spoke with barely any hesitation. “It does become tiresome, to see people dress chaos in order, order in chaos, until you become accustomed to the double speak. There is no beauty in what becomes inadvertently obvious, tawdry.”

Walt, always her double, added, “There is something of intrinsic worth in trying to save something of beauty, something special.”

Neena scoffed. “You think there’s something beautiful about us, about this ship?”

Lennox tilted her head to the side, a slightly patronizing look in her eyes. “About the chance that there is a way for  _ The Hope _ to return to life? Yes. This ship—only inasmuch as it can hopefully save the colony ship and its colonists.”

“And if we don’t manage to do that?”

Lennox and Walt shared a look. It was the male interloper who voiced the thought they shared. “Well, then you’ll owe SubLight a favor.”

It was Catherine who provided the context. “You don’t wanna owe Lilya a favor, if you know what’s good for you.”

That sent a bad shiver up Max’s spine. He spoke up, gazing back from the stone-faced Catherine to the two in front of both him and Neena. “But… why not tell us that earlier, instead of making us…” he trailed off, freshly aware of the presence of Neena Castillo in his arms. 

Walt answered that question. “Is it so wrong to want to see if we can push an emotional breakthrough in two people who might otherwise continue to dance around the issue at hand?” Realizing what he meant, Max felt his neck and chest grow hot, not just from the shared heat created from holding Neena. “And besides: who knows of what other trouble you two will get yourselves into if you keep playing around like this?”

Lennox, the smile on her face for once not unpleasant, said, “I would recommend that you make haste for whatever it is you need to do, whatever will take you closer to freeing those trapped on  _ The Hope. _ Who knows what might be waiting for you, the next time you fall into trouble. SubLight’s help doesn’t necessarily come as a  _ freebie  _ for its services rendered.”

Neena shook their head, seemed to sink further back, closer against Max’s chest. “I don’t like being lied to, feeling like my life’s about to end.”

Lennox did a mock bow, one gloved hand rising to her chest. “My apologies. My hope is that with time you will forget the trauma which SubLight has caused you. I do hope, however, that the message you’ve learned here will stick with you. What it is that you most value on your journey.”

Max could feel it, as Neena tensed. He thought that they were about to fly out of his grasp, take off running until they hit one of the two in front of them. Instead, Neena snarled, “Cut this shit out. I want all of you off my ship.” When Lennox only answered by blinking in what looked an awful lot like disbelief, Max felt them pull loose of his arms finally, taking a step closer to the two. “Get off my ship. Now.”

The two exchanged a look, and even though Max was just as angry at them as Neena was—surely—he wondered, for a split second, if the two would prove that this had been just another game they were playing.

The two walked up, then past the two distraught members of  _ The Unreliable’s  _ crew. As they left, in spite of all of the rage and excitement that flowed through him, Max felt a visceral relief to see the two out of the cockpit. As they both exchanged a glance at Catherine, the woman seemed to respond by snapping her gaze back at the two who were still standing very close together.

“Oh,” she remarked before she turned to follow them, leaving the ship. “Before I forget: you people are banned from Fallbrook until further notice.” Her lips lifted in a smile, even as her eyes seemed to glow bright with a desire for someone—anyone—to try to argue with her. “You’ll need the personal recommendation from Hagen before I will allow you to land this piece of shit back on my landing pad.”

Neena answered, waving their hand condescendingly at the woman as she was already walking away. “Guess I can’t make good on that permanent rental I have on that cabin anymore?” When Catherine answered by turning away and lifting her hand up to gesture at the Captain with her own kind of one gun salute, Neena continued, “You’re  _ welcome _ for saving your town.”

The sound, of the door to the ship closing, brought a sigh from the two at the same time.

Neena leaned back against him, eliciting a fresh rush of blood that ran through Max with unyielding heaviness. He instinctively lowered his hand, pressing it to their abdomen, drawing them against him. 

They seemed to be on the same wavelength as Neena drew their face up, turned towards him, moments from kissing him.

ADA spoke up, her voice an unwanted interruption if ever there was one. “Captain Hawthorne, Counselor.”

Neena groaned, dragging their face away to glare at the display. Turning, Max saw how the panel now revealed a smug, knowing expression. “The hell  _ is _ it, can’t it wait a second?”

In a split second Max was reminded of another time he had spent in this very room. The generated face wore a bigger smile as the ever-monotone voice said, “Don’t mind me. I just wanted to warn you that you are not alone right now.”

Both turned, saw the crowd that had appeared in the doorway to the cockpit. Of course this ought to have been an obvious turn of events in the wake of their  _ guests _ leaving. 

The rest of the crew were standing in the doorway, almost all of them looking at the two with a knowing expression on their faces.

Max felt it when Neena pressed their head against his chest and let out an exasperated groan. The only thing he could do, in the wake of being, undoubtedly, outed in front of the whole crew, was offer Neena a comforting embrace. And hope, for the sake of his Captain’s already injured pride, that the commentary and joking from at least two members of the crew would stop. One day, perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am sorry. I know, I see what time it is. In my time zone it's still technically Sunday, but I am aware that me uploading this late means that I may as well have done it on Monday. It was a surprisingly hard chapter to revise (I have had a revelation that I abuse commas and to a lesser extent, sentence length in general(!)), but I try to keep the promises I make to readers, and I know that this close to the ending it can be excruciating to think that a creator might crap out of the weekly upload. I also know that there's a LOT of Max work at the moment especially, so I just happen to have the most goddamn long piece, which may not be what most people want. So I promise I'll make it up to you guys (that is, if I still have people in this thing, months since I started this and 200k words in!)
> 
> I mean, I guess that's it for now. It's super late for me and I don't know what else to talk about RIGHT right now, other than I am happy to see the end of this insane project and I am humbled by the feedback and kind words I've gotten over this. I hope it's not horrible to say, but I hope getting to the end will bring new readers in, having a broader audience is all I could ever ask for.


	40. 39. Flowers on the Wall

Grunting, Parvati pulled her hand out of the hole, clenching her fist to force blood flow back into her fingers. She really ought to have used one of the fancy tools that had been generously provided for her use, along with the beautiful workshop that she had been working in for half of a year at that point. After all, it had been a long time anyway since her hand had been small enough to fit properly into spaces like this to insert components. But, damn if she wasn’t too excited to want to fool around with anything that made the repairs take longer than necessary. Her hands were shaking from the excitement by the time she screwed the panel piece back in place over it.

Fixing the panel in place was the final piece of the puzzle she had been working on; something that, while not by any means as grand a project as the Tennyson Groundbreaker, was a remarkable feat in and of itself. After all it had been the first time she had decided to try to build on top of the A.I hardware that had been left in the destroyed carapace, with some of the software re-worked, thanks to help from the ship’s Counselor.

She was excited to show the others what she had done, managed in less time than she had estimated it would take; the end of a project that meant a lot to all of them. A sign that they could regain their normalcy, in the wake of what they had lost. What still felt like so recently, since the two representatives of Lilya Hagen had left.

Barely suppressing the urge to squeal in happiness, Parvati leaped up from the crouch that she had been sitting in, running to the ladder that led to the second floor. It was hard to stop from wanting to yell, to let everyone see what she had managed to do even before she ran past the heart of the ship. 

In the dining room she quickly took in the sight of Ellie and Nyoka sat at the far end of the table, playing cards and drinking and with Felix on dish duty, finishing up what remained of the dinner they had all cooked together two hours ago.

Still, she ran into the dining room, beaming. “I did it! I—I fixed SAM!”

The three people who sat in the dining room turned to look at her, all with varying reactions. Felix reacted enthusiastically and slapped his suds-covered hands in a clap, Ellie let out a, “congratulations”, and Nyoka yelled, taking her bottle of Zero Gee and slamming it down on the table. As she slammed it down a second time, it was as if a water balloon had exploded on the table, causing Ellie to leap back, off of her seat.

“Damn it,” she snarled, hands wiping at her booze-soaked shirt. “I thought you promised that if you were going to break anything, it wouldn’t make a mess!”

Nyoka winced, stuttering out an apology. “Ah—sorry sis.”

As Ellie cursed Parvati reacted quickly, running past the table, going into the supply closet to grab a handful of shop towels. As she was about to leave, she heard it—a hoarse, immediately hair-raising groan. Still not used to such noises—not fully, yet, with how she had basically lived in the workshop for the past week and some change, rarely venturing up here, except for meals and bathroom breaks—she jumped at the sound. Then felt her face burn in embarrassment in recognition. 

Hurrying back to the dining room Parvati took in the sight of the two women who were trying to salvage what had not been damaged by liquor on the table, a mismatch of ever-present papers that had been left and the cards they had been playing with. As she neared Parvati got the acrid, sour smell of the booze, couldn’t hold back the gag that heaved in the back of her throat at its smell. She thrust the towel out to the ready hands of the two women and took an unintentional step back. As always, any liquor except for wine had the effect of reminding her of the smell that leached out of her father's mouth and even his pores as he had deteriorated along with the rest of Edgewater.

The two began soaking up the mess, with Ellie saying, “ _ Law damn it  _ woman, that was my favorite deck of cards.”

Felix had gone to the bathroom, returning with some clean bath towels, which Nyoka waved away before the man could hand them over. “Uh-uh. You use those, mom or dad’ll yell at you.”

_ Mom and dad.  _ That used to be a name the two who were swabbing up the mess had called the pair in question behind their back. Now they were calling them those names to their faces. Neena had only fought off the name half-heartedly, mostly because they contested being “mom” in that non-Engineer approved equation. Once, Parvati had seen Max, with a laugh, accept the moniker of “mom” enthusiastically.

_ My, but things really have changed since Monarch.  _ And, thankfully, not all of it was dealing with physical or emotional scars.

Still, Felix nodded, stuttering before he ran back to put the towels where he had found them. Parvati saw that the towels she had brought had indeed not been enough and she ran back to the supply closet. As she was pulling more out of the huge Aunt Cleo’s Industrial Strength Cleen tin that had been repurposed to hold the shop rags and towels that Pavati used frequently, she heard someone yelling, a sound that made her jump and drop some of the towels she had grabbed.

“Ah—C-c-Captain, I’m gonna—” then the voice cut off, ending in a hoarse cry. 

“Oh dear,” Parvati muttered, bending to pick the towels up, hurrying out before she had a chance to get a fresh earful of the mayhem happening in the Captain’s Quarters. 

As she got into the room Ellie motioned impatiently for Parvati to hand her the towels. 

“C’mon.” As she began swabbing up more of the foul-smelling puddle left on her side of the table and the center—with Nyoka apparently having disappeared, based on the lack of wet, alcohol-soaked towels in the vicinity, Parvati guessed that she was disposing of them.

As Parvati stood, awkwardly watching the ship’s doctor swabbing up liquor and scooping up pieces of broken glass, Felix, left to watch the mess that had been made with the same awkward look on his face that Parvati felt in her bones, said, “So—you’re saying you  _ fixed _ SAM?”

The incredulousness and the admiration in his voice brought back some of the pride and excitement that Parvati had been feeling. “I mean, I also put in some upgrades. I hope no one misses his voice, I um, I tinkered a bit with his personality parameters also. First time doin’ it; had some help, but I hope the Captain doesn’t mind me takin’ a chance with my first go with revision and updates of a simple A.I systems. But yeah, I think I can turn him on.”

ADA, who had been silent in the ensuing chaos, finally spoke up. “When can we expect him to return to duty?”

Ellie snorted at that, and Parvati could guess why. It was a less than open secret that the Captain and the Counselor were just one of the two known couples on the ship. But Parvati was kinder, had been motivated, partially, by the fact that she knew how much SAM meant to her ship’s A.I. No matter how odd the situation seemed to her, even as someone who already put a lot of worth and personality in machines.

Smiling at the ceiling towards the source of the voice out of a habit that none of them had quite ever broken, she answered, “As soon as the Captain approves it.”

Ellie spoke up, shaking her head, a smile teasing on her lips for the first time since she had gotten soaked in liquor. “You call that miracle work you did “repair”? Sam was a bucket of  _ scrap _ out there.”

Parvati ducked her head, embarrassed by the unexpected, but admittedly, fair praise. “Oh, it wasn’t nothing. Needed something to do, while the Cap’n and Mr. DeSoto were healin’ up. I think it brought me n’ Mr. DeSoto closer together, too.”

Felix had been staring straight at her since she had described her assessment of how soon SAM would be ready. He spoke up, shaking his head. “I don’t know how you can do any of that, it’s amazing.”

About to murmur a usual refrain of it being  _ no problem, really _ , as her face was finally surely growing red with a blush, Ellie said, “And  _ where _ oh  _ where _ are our two little damaged birds?”

The other two ducked their heads, stutters forming in the back of their throats simultaneously. The telling grin on the doctor’s face showed that it had been her intention, to make them lose their ability to think and speak.

Nyoka entered the room, revealing how she had started to unbutton her once tidy outfit, her neckerchief loosened around her neck. “So, I wanna take a shower, but should I wait to see SAM, I mean, are we gonna turn him on—”

Parvati hurriedly interrupted, “Oh, I don’t wanna do it till we get the okay from the Captain.”

Nyoka leaned against the table, a knowing smirk on her lips. “In that case, we might be waiting till tomorrow.”

Eliie agreed, adding, “Based on what I’ve been hearing, at least.”

Nyoka said, “If the Captain’s room is a rockin’, don’t bother—”

Felix interrupted, sounding, much like Parvati, in no hurry to hear the two older women describe what was obviously happening, in gruesome detail. “They do that all the time. They’ve  _ been _ doing it for so long before this, too!”

Nyoka snorted, a grin spreading lazily across her mouth. “‘mean, I don’t blame either of them. Way they used to bicker, it was like one of those serial romances. Bound to happen.”

Ellie nodded in agreement, her movements stiff as she tried to not move too much, soaked in liquor that she was now trying to swab out of her clothes with a shop towel. “Two canids in a goddamn gunny sack.”

Both Parvati and Felix groaned in dismay, and almost in unison, said, in a beg, “ _ El-lie _ —” 

Nyoka grinned fully at her sister in this conversation, a hand resting on her hip. “Pretty big gunny sack, I think. But… do they  _ think _ they’re being subtle, or at least, quiet?”

Ellie now grinning, nodded towards her. “What if I told you that a joke, from a very annoyed A.I, months ago, has gotten way out of control?”

Parvati dropped the extra towels she had been holding in her hands. “Wait—ADA pulled a prank?” Could A.Is even  _ pull _ pranks—at least, as she and any mechanic or any technician who dealt in the field of robotics understood the concept of the parameters of an artificial personality construct—would ADA even be  _ capable _ of such a thing?

Echoing her, Felix asked, “What kind of a prank?”

Ellie seemed to relish the question, turning to look between the two with a smug smirk on her face. As she opened her mouth, though, it was Nyoka, in a cracked, laughing voice, who answered the question. “So, apparently, ADA told the Captain that the rooms are sound proofed.”

She was silent, and the shock—the implication of that statement—rolled over all of them, really sunk in. 

Parvati answered, more than well aware of everything that she had been able to learn of the ship they all lived in. “Now, wait, the walls’re made of metal, so they ain’t the worst when it comes to tamping sound, but they ain’t the best, neither; surely,  _ surely _ the Captain had to know—”

Ellie answered, her voice sharp. “Now, we all respect the hell out of that person, but if you look, deep in your soul, do you  _ really think _ that Neena would know if metal walls are even supposed to magnify sound, let alone muffle it?”

Felix sounded offended. “Hey that’s not nice—”

Ellie answered, interrupting. “What’s  _ not nice  _ is having to listen to those two bump uglies after I had to patch them up.” She shuddered. “After you see both of them naked, one twice, it’s—it’s stuck in your head, forever,” she whined. “My brain supplies the visual addition to their damn noises.”

Felix made a sound like a gag. “Oh, that sounds terrible.”

“Wait,” Nyoka, glancing over at her, asked, “I understand seein’ the Captain—the trainwreck falls and breaks something every other week—but why the hell you see Max playing skins?”

Felix seemed to pale and his eyes darted over to Ellie. “You didn’t… I mean…”

Ellie groaned, massaging the bridge of her nose. “Oh, save me the hysterics and don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not as… what’s the polite term for it?” She snapped her fingers. “Hyper intimate as those two. Come on, do I  _ look _ like I have a desire to be the third wheel in whatever they’re doing up there?” Her voice raised as another thought seemed to occur to her. “Wait—do you  _ think _ that I’d try to be a homewrecker?”

Everyone stuttered out a denial, with Nyoka snapping out, “Hell  _ no _ , no one meant that.” She paused, glancing over at the others. “I think?”

Parvati and Felix held their hands up, denying that they had ever thought that that option was even one to consider. Parvati blurted out, “Ms. Fenhill, I’d  _ never _ —”

Ellie sighed, interrupting, “I burst into his room once when he was getting dressed. I mean, I  _ regret _ it, but I do gotta say…” she trailed off, a strange, knowing but faraway look on her eyes. “I mean, Counselor’s rocking his age.”

Everyone groaned at the same time and once everyone stopped, almost all of the crew assembled in the dining room flinched anew when they heard someone letting out a loud, muffled moan, originating from the Captain’s Quarters. 

Parvati almost fanned herself. “Don’t those two ever get  _ tired _ of that? I mean, all it is is just…” She stopped herself, realizing that there was no way she could describe what she at least  _ thought _ was the basic mechanics of what they were probably doing that didn’t make her want to feel sick by describing _ Neena and Max _ doing it.

Nyoka laughed, halfway to her room to get a change of clothes. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t knock it till you try it.”

Ellie, barely suppressing a smirk, said, “Never say never.”

Of course, Parvati had to agree with Felix’s assessment as he groaned, “What does anyone’s desire to do…  _ that _ have to do with being grossed out by the thought of  _ those _ two doing it?”


	41. 40. Captain Tango

“Why does this feel like a very personal fantasy?”, said the man who sat, trussed up on the chair in the center of the room.

Neena flicked their tongue over their lips. They were starting to feel thirsty. After all, they had been in this room for, what, over an hour? And they had been  _ very _ active in that time. Making a dream of theirs happen, after what felt like they were still too close to losing the person whom it concerned. It had still, even after all of that, taken a few days to get to the point where Neena felt comfortable telling Max that this is what they wanted to do. And it wasn’t just because they were concerned, even if they would never admit it aloud, over their ship’s Counselor’s physical state so soon after his almost ruinous injuries. 

After all, it felt like not too long ago, Max had been in bondage with very different context.

And now, here they were; wearing nothing but their boots and a less than fine sheen of sweat. Up until a few minutes ago, Max had also been nearly naked. Now he was in his old vestments, his hands tied behind his back. Putting clothing on in the heat of the moment was a strange choice. But, oh, how it was  _ worth _ it.

He had cummed ten minutes ago so Neena knew that the road to the next one for him would be slow and leisurely. Which was good; for a man who had spent his whole life not indulging in the sins of the flesh, when Max had not worn himself out first, he had a habit of making Neena think he had the heart of a younger man. Or, at least, the libido of one, in spite of what they had the suspicion was a new growth of greying, buzzcut hair that had manifested itself since their hopefully last day on Fallbrook, on either side of his head.

Taking in the sight of the bound Counselor, playing the role, no matter how poorly at the moment as he was, of his old self, Neena admired the way that the cassock and trousers, meant to hide his frame and body, looked when he was tousled and forced to sit in place for their pleasure. Neena had tied Max’s arms behind his back, his wrists bound with some gentle but sturdy cord to the back of the chair, his hair a mess, the man covered from head to toe in a blush. 

What could they say—this had worked out better than Neena would have thought it would have, even more than they had fantasized it would. Still, Neena took a brief pause, walking over to their minibar, taking a drink of the old-fashioned that they had made during the brief pause in their nightly routine. It steadied their nerves a bit, more important than curing any dehydration. Made them braver than they would have dared reveal to the man that they had tied up.

Turning back to look at their hostage they found that Max’s eyes were bright; in spite of the earlier tease, he looked excited. Which, even though Neena could still only grasp separate memories of the first night they spent together, they had known that he would love this, just like he had loved dominating them on their last night in Fallbrook.

To think, they had always thought that the story, about there being someone for everyone, had been bullshit. Now here they were, too wrapped up these days with a grown-up version of playing house.

Now Neena had to deliver.

“How’s that binding feel?”, they asked, making their voice sound cold as they sat their tumbler back down on their little bar’s tray.

Max seemed surprised by the question, and he half-turned, as if he meant to somehow look down at his wrists. “Uh—I’m fine.” He hesitated before he raised his eyes back up to meet Neena’s. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Neena stiffened, without thought standing straighter. “Do not confuse my concern for your comfort to mean that I’m not ready for this.” They watched Max closely, could swear that his lips had fallen open slightly. “So, unless something is bothering you, something that I need to deal with immediately, you need to obey every word I say.”

Max stared up at them, his eyes a haze of green. He was settling into this role, letting it take him over, guide him. But he still needed a prod, or some guidance.

Neena walked over to him and slowly—so slowly that it made all of them ache, with the desire to touch him—bent over Max, resting a hand on the edge of the back of the chair that their ship’s Counselor was imprisoned on. Their face was far enough so that Neena couldn’t just lean forward to kiss him, or, for that matter, he couldn’t try to sneak one. 

“Tell me how much you love me.”

He said it without a moment of hesitation. “I worship you. What we do together is my religion.”

In any other normal setting Neena would have been embarrassed by that. They had told him, repeatedly, to stop saying that—especially as he had said something, a little more veiled and less specific, thankfully, to Felix once during a conversation about finding purpose and meaning in life—but this was the one setting that Neena could not deny that it thrilled them. Had been a major reason why they had looked forward to the day when they would feel comfortable enough doing this with him. Putting that declaration to test.

So Neena flicked a grin at him for a moment before they let their expression fall into a frown as they leaned forward, just a few precious centimeters. “You haven’t lived up to that, you know.”

Max took in a deep breath, making his adam’s apple bounce appealingly behind the gold lined high collar of his cassock. “I’ve done everything I can thus far in order to  _ prove _ it—”

Neena shushed him, pressing a finger to his pretty, heavily used lips. “Think you can just sit here and let me do what the fuck I want, Mr. DeSoto?” They let their tongue come out to flick at their indeed drying bottom lip, watched how his gaze fell to watch it. “Or is it Vicar DeSoto?”

He opened his mouth, but the weight of Neena’s finger on his lips seemed to make him realize what they wanted from him. He closed his mouth, and the uncertain look he gave Neena fed the primitive drive inside of his ordained godhead. They loved Max in control, but it was decadent, irresistible, to make him look completely out of that control.

They pushed it, teasing him; reading his expressions like the Vicar Max once used to, infuriatingly, seem to try to study them to look for some weakness, some way for the so-called light of his divine providence to shine into their soul. Much like he once did. Neena searched then, looking for any change, show of overt and subtle emotion, to play off of. With the residual sweet calm of their own orgasm that they had also so recently experienced, Neena could really enjoy the build up here. The joy of giving their captive audience his heart’s darkest desires.

It was a relief to have this dichotomy, as this guy always had the habit of making them feel like a teenage boy, about to cream their pants at the lightest brush of his body against theirs. Months into it, and it still felt like a joy to look forward to the next time, his room, theirs, snuck into the bathroom. In the supply closet.

It was time to punish him for taking up all of the time in their head.

“Ever had a lap dance, Vicar Maximillion?” When Max started to open his mouth, Neena shushed him, thrilled in the return of heat that they could see in his eyes as he shut his mouth. “Gonna have to forgive me—I’m about seven decades out of practice, but you don’t forget how to shoot and ride a bike, right?”

He whimpered, never looking more like a boy than he did in that moment to Neena. Or like he was supposed to be in this fantasy; a Vicar who had been tied up and seduced. And had gotten in way,  _ way _ over his head.

They turned, then Neena remembered before they did anything that they were missing the key ingredient to enjoy and give a good lap dance. Neena walked over to their chest, heard Max let out a gasp—turned around quickly to make sure the chatty man wasn’t about to start talking. Once they watched Max shut his mouth, Neena turned back to their task, letting the grin that wanted to spread across their face grow, facing away from their trapped audience.

They found it, the music player that they had bought from “grandma” Gladys, which contained music from old Earth. Hopefully, the club classics of Earth nightclubs that Max’s ancestors  _ might _ have, potentially, bumped and ground to, could still get the job done.

There was only one way to tell and Neena turned it on once they found a good track that had their personal favorite in this type of a situation; not overtly sexual in its lyrics, teasing, almost dark and forbidding, whispering through its beat and composition a sensuality that they could work to. Oh, and good,  _ long _ .

The irony, that Neena would be showcasing their admiration for him in such a blatant, preening way when it was supposed to be their time to torment and dominate him, did not pass them by. It fed Neena, excited them to mix who was worshipping whom as they turned on their heel, feigning a frown on their face when they wanted to instead grin like a moron as they faced their trapped ship’s Counselor.

Max wasn’t allowed to say anything out loud, but he said plenty with his eyes. Excitement, trepidation, but the most important of all, when he was told to keep quiet and remain bound, was the open trust. 

Nothing that Neena had ever seen, truly, in the eyes of anyone else they had, ever, fucked. And with good reason. Before Max, Neena had had no loyalty and had been careless with people’s hearts.

As the beat grew organically and the voice of the singer softly sang a lilting, darkly sweet melody, Neena let their lips part and they strode up to him, unwittingly letting their body language mirror his own, with their arms drawn behind their back. They stopped, standing two feet from him. Fought to not look at his waist, to see if he was responding to this already.

They also waited to see if he would behave.

When he just kept his eyes on them—his gaze reaching and sliding all over their body—Neena finished walking the distance between them. Didn’t miss the huge intake of breath that shuddered in his chest, his abdomen. They began to return the attention he was showing their body with his eyes with their hands. Neena loved the soft texture of his cassock; how it felt against their fingers, the little edges, the line of his collar. It was so much fun, to melt this man down to his elements: older, refined but also tempestuous. Even to dress him in the mistakes of his past so overtly, was delicious. To play with it, imagining they were healing him by making those very clothes that confined him in as much a literal sense as the cord on his wrists now did, once had for him.

And he looked so irresistibly unreachable, off limits in it.

As Neena trailed their fingers against the little unsubtle flash of gold fabric that was supposed to provide, unsuccessfully, modesty for the proud, masculine shape of his throat and shoulders, they watched as his throat constricted, his adam’s apple shaking, thumping. They wanted to touch the flesh there, that seemed to cry out for them to caress. Instead, Neena showed their admiration for his body, even in the vestments, trailing their hands on either one of his shoulders, rising their gaze from his throat to the taut balls of his shoulders from how his hands were trapped behind his back. It was a pity in this situation that they couldn’t see his muscular arms, his big, unsophisticated fingers that they loved to suck on, to fuck, to be wantonely fondled and groped by.

They were greedy for him, all of him, from the tips of his calloused toes to the now messy nest of his still shampoo-smelling, soft hair. It was a new experience for Neena, to fall in love with every aspect of a person, the kind of things that it took time—months—to even begin to notice, let alone appreciate. To learn how he fit against them in all ways, the good and the oh so wonderfully wrong ways that made Neena wet with just a look or the sound of his voice.

They dared a glance at his face, wanting to let him know that for once this was going to be all about what they were doing to him, the reaction they made in him. Anytime they did anything new it so obviously surprised him, excited him. 

And Max looked overwhelmed, like he was on a wild ride, eyes bright, breathing erratic. But he obeyed, kept trusting.

So Neena was generous, rewarding him with a smile, then brought their hands down, slowly slipping down that tossball built body, covered in clothes that ought to have marked him as forbidden. But the handsome, older man wearing the vestments was softly writhing from the bare touch, like he was under a spell that made every portion of him move wherever Neena’s attention slid.

Such a beautiful man he was. He deserved to have at least more than one person loving him, his body, before they had come for him. So Neena considered it their duty to make up for what he had not had a chance to do in his youth. Because Neena wasn’t about to let someone else touch him, not in this way. Their way.

Their hands slid down his abdomen, down past his waist. Rewarded themselves, too, with the sight of his dick straining beneath the now immodest covering of his cassock and trousers, a literal tent. 

_ Don’t need too much recovery.  _ He never seemed to. Even though these days Neena had never felt in their life less attractive, dashing as they once had. And it wasn’t just due to the cruelties of age.

They grazed past that with one of their hands, “accidentally” sliding past it, as though it were nothing more than an impediment in the center of the path they were cutting down his body.

That was the first sound he made, a helpless-sounding moan that seemed to raise in pitch at the end. It was like a beg for mercy. But Neena knew that that was the man in him that didn’t know he was worthy of being seduced, over and over again. The Vicar who rotted away in a diseased town.

Neena reminded themselves that they would know when he had reached a limit, no matter how excited they could get, Neena would pay attention for the moment he lost the enjoyment he was getting. So his Captain took a quick glance up to his face before they looked back at the equally as appealing shape of his excited, trapped dick. 

Max winced, his lips pursed. Erotic pain and frustration.

He had no idea what he was in for.

Neena trailed their hands down his waist, then slid to caress his knees before they stood up. Heard the dismayed groan that rumbled from his chest. But he didn’t contest it, argue.

It was a little late to go back to this level but Neena followed their instincts, trusted that he would let them go wherever they pined to. So Neena slipped their fingers through his hair, enjoying the slightly wet-slicked texture. He shuddered, proof that it wasn’t just his dick that enjoyed the teasing touches.

“Do you like being played with, big man?”

Max spoke, half-surprising Neena, who believed that they had already successfully trained their toy. “Too much.” His strained, whispering voice was as undeniably erotic as the gently pulsating beat of the music. 

Even for two words, Neena’s whole being quivered in anticipation for the punishment they could give him. “I made you be quiet.”

It was delightful to watch the way he reacted as he realized the mistake he had made; pretty green eyes widening, lips parting in a gasp, body tightening without thought to the fact that his wrists were bound. “Ah—I didn’t mean to, that is—”

A thought occurred to Neena, of a Vicar they found a strange mutual understanding of, under the weight of the fruity, slightly astringent taste of wine on their tongue so long ago. He had always lost his cool with them.

It made them partial to him, even as he stumbled in this. Neena shushed him this time with a kiss; a tender one, the kind that almost didn’t fit the situation, intimate, sweet, cloying, like that wine they had bonded together with in that night aboard Groundbreaker so long ago. But this made him taste, smell not of the wine so long ago, but rather of the old-fashioned that Neena had drunk. Orange peel, whiskey, and most intoxicating of all, Max DeSoto.

When they pulled away they could feel him unintentionally fight their retreat, lips begging, parted, to keep kissing, and deeper. 

Neena took a step back, watching as the man looked up at them, a slight shadow of desperation in the set of his strong, dimpled jaw, the mad light in his eyes. But this time he didn’t say anything, even though his body was screaming for relief.

Neena rewarded him, taking a step forward, then slowly slipping onto him until they were hovering just above his lap in a half sit. They didn’t realize that they were breathing hard until they found his eyes on their heaving tits.

Indeed this was a night that brought back memories of the first night that Neena had begun to crave him. The memory of the, in retrospect, hungry, desperate way he gaped at their tits. Like he was seeing something for the first time that he knew he wanted, had to possess.

Neena bounced up once, drew themselves up straighter. “Bet you want to suck on it.”

His eyes darted up to their face. Good; he was paying attention. In spite of the hunger that reflected in his eyes, Max said nothing, and Neena could see his impressive jaw clenching shut as he trapped any words that might have otherwise broken free inside of him. 

After all, this wasn’t his time to worship them. It was Neena’s chance to.

And where Max had learned to express himself with his words, with his enthusiasm, violent or otherwise, Neena had learned a long time ago that they best showed admiration by giving what someone needed, not what they wanted, even if it was something that they never would have expressed aloud.

Neena bit their bottom lip, loving the way he stared at it, letting out a noise that sounded like a trapped growl. A bead of sweat grew at his hairline, and without a moment of hesitation Neena reached forward, scooping it like a prize on the tip of their index finger, bringing it to their lips. Sucking on it.

He watched with a helpless turn to the expression on his face, his own lips rounding as if he were about to beg, plead. But he didn’t say a thing, even though he wore his need, his desire, for Neena to see. 

What a beautiful thing he was, to be so open and vulnerable, to not think that there was a thing wrong with it. It was the beauty, Neena had grown to believe, in having a man who had not been ruined by the toxicity of other people with his sexuality, who might have narrowed his emotional depth and complexity—or at least, the kind of bad, selfish, short-sighted lovers, the kind that Neena had grown oh so tired of. 

It sure did make it hard to sleep through the night, when Neena knew they had a Max, whether or not he was in their room on any given night or not, always available for easy access for intimacy or experimentation.

Now it was time to reward the both of them, with him into the music, into the mood, into them. Neena lowered their ass onto his lap, thrilled by the feeling of not just how his dick felt, almost pressing itself against their ass like an exclamation point, but in how his hips rocked up to meet them. Some rhythms Neena had taught him more times than was necessary for any sort of instruction, and he rose into it, without thought or intent. There was no reason to punish him for something he had no control over.

After all, at this point he was more of a tool bent for pleasure that he was a man. And, oh, how freeing that must have felt.

Neena didn’t realize that they were still biting their lip as they looked up into his eyes, beginning to twist, rotate their hips around the shape of his dick, not quite pressing their full weight down. Felt the answering rumble that grew in his chest as they got into a lazy pace, meeting the smooth beat of the music that melted them together. 

They had fantasized about this before, of course. How much fun it would have been to sit on this daddy’s lap without warning, get all of his unwavering attention in an instant. Of course, Neena had mostly imagined this with his rough hands free to roam and grope them.

But there were always surprises to find out about themselves, and Neena loved sharing these discoveries with the man they were inspired by. Eager to move onto more in spite of how much fun this was, Neena sat up slightly, paying attention to making each movement seem deliberate and unhurried. Knowing what they liked themselves from experience in the driver’s seat as well as the one who was doing the dancing.

To be honest, some of the reason that they had made him stay quiet was because Neena needed to fall into a trance to do this, to enjoy it; at least for the first time with him. Doing this for the first time, also, with their damaged, covered eye. 

The irretrievable damage was like a new barrier between them that Neena had not realized would still alter their behavior with him, in spite of knowing that he didn’t seem to see them as any less of an object of beauty, a person he wanted to be with.

But now Neena was fully sunk into the sensation, into the experience. They dipped closer, loving the feel of his oddly beautiful and far from immodest vestments scraping and pressing against their naked skin, their sensitized, hardened nipples. Max’s head was lowered as he openly gazed at their body, lips pressing and sliding together as he began to teethe at his bottom lip. Then he rose his eyes up, stared at their face.

The open look of lust and hunger he shared, open in his eyes as he gazed at them, almost stopped Neena dead. They weren’t exactly “fit”, definitely not as young as they used to be, and with their damaged eye, Neena had a lingering disbelief over him finding  _ all _ of them as attractive.

For a moment, Neena wondered if it was  _ them _ that ought to have been openly telling people that they had taken to worshiping a very real and present person in their ship. 

Dipping their head back to feign a carefree thrust, letting a moan come from the very back of their throat, Neena willed the tears that had formed in both their intact and damaged eye away. Looking back down at him, Neena drank in the sight of Max, softly panting, grinding back up at them.

They had wanted to do more, but Neena didn’t know how much one of them could stand at this point. Maybe, one day, they could hold themselves back enough to stand the long, luxurious chance to dance on Max—with or without his hands and voice tied—but at the moment, Neena realized that they couldn’t stand waiting any longer. Slipping one leg free, Neena teased their knee down, past his jutting hips, slipping against the telltale shape in his trousers, hiking against the bottom hem of his cassock.

They knew exactly where they wanted to go with this, but it seemed that their music player—not set to just play the one long song, as Neena had thought it had—had other intentions on the mood of the moment as it began to blast out a blaring guitar barrage.

Neena laughed, caught somewhere between shock and humiliation as they jumped to their feet, walking wobble-legged to the music player. Wishing that anything—well,  _ almost  _ anything—had been what had played next instead of some stupid crotch rock.

As they slammed the player down to shut it off, Neena heard the first overt vocalization from the man that formed their captive audience. Max laughed.

At first Neena wasn’t mad at him for the break in what they had been building, they were  _ mortified _ . It had already been more than a jump for someone like them, to try to rely solely on what sensuality they could hope to exude, stuck with wearing an eye patch and still, always, struggling with their depth perception.

Now they just felt like a clown.

Seriously considering just calling this a wash, Neena turned around to look at Max and stopped in their tracks, everything they had thought about what they had been doing leaving them. Proof that Max was on the same wavelength was how he smiled at them; he was a restrained, desperate looking mess, his eyes bright with what felt like every emotion that was possible. Then Max seemed to see that there was an unexpected vulnerability in them, because his smile faded slightly.

About to tell him that it was time to just untie him and do something less adventurous, Max said, “You know, you look so very sexy when you laugh.” 

He had a way of talking like that; with an earnestness that most people would not have dared to speak with. Especially a man. And what’s more, he had a knack for saying such things where other people would just sound like they were trying too damn hard when they complimented so openly.

Heat bloomed all through Neena, a reawakening of a feeling that they had thought they had just already overindulged in. “Next time I won’t go to the trouble of even bothering to be sexy, I’ll just laugh like an idiot.” Watching how Max’s face contorted, about to apologize, Neena smiled at him and took another pose with their hands held in an almost meek gesture behind their back. “Come on, admit it, though; I’m not the same as I was before.” They had meant it a little playfully, but unexpectedly it felt like it stuck more than a little too close to home.

Used to him complying easily, Neena was shocked when Max seemed to transform in front of them—even tied up. He sat up further, his eyes sharp, even with the influence of his need bearing down on him. “What are you talking about?”

Neena had a feeling that they ought to have expected this, but thus far Neena had managed to not confront the fact that they felt that there was no way in hell that Max could  _ possibly _ find them as attractive as he once had. Back when he could look into their  _ eyes. _

Neena felt uncomfortable, as though they had just offended him. Debased something that he held—sacred. They reached up, wrapping their arms over their chest. “Can’t beat around the bush here, come on, I look fucked up.” 

He blinked unevenly, and Neena could see how anger was affecting him as a feral brightness lit up his eyes and his face tightened into a once far-too familiar expression. Even given his very noticeable physical situation he effortlessly came off as displeased with what Neena had said. “How, by  _ law _ , do you look “fucked up”?” And, damn, he sounded good and pissed off.

For the first time since he had let them do it, Neena was grateful that Max was tied up, couldn’t loom over them in his teeming anger. “Oh, I don’t know, could have something to do with me only having one eye left.” They were proud of themselves, how, even given the situation, Neena could keep their sarcasm and bitter humor. It was like a security blanket.

Max jumped in his seat, as though he were about to leap free with his wrists bound behind him. He closed his eyes as soon as he realized that he was definitely still trapped, his wrists keeping him bound to the chair. Letting out a hissing breath, Max snapped, “Come here.” When Neena was about to demand an answer to that declaration, Max seemed to regain some of his earlier composure, taking it a deep breath. In a calm voice, he said. “Please, there’s something important I need to tell you.”

For some strange reason Neena felt anxious at the prospect of whatever it was that he was going to say to them but they pushed the feeling away and walked up to Max, some part of their earlier confidence leaching out of them. Unforgotten about, too, was the fact that all of this was over a man who was wearing his old Vicar vestments. And who had been tied up on their chair.

Neena stopped just short of him, then saw a flicker of his earlier annoyance as he looked up at them. “Come  _ here _ .” When they just stared at him, Max winced, his nostrils flaring. “Sit on my leg. If you would please.”

Neena felt a blush creep up the back of their neck, overcome, even in spite of their current situation, with the thought of being a horny teacher’s pet for their hot Vicar. Pushing that aside—at least, momentarily—Neena sat on Max’s leg, looked into his face.

Calmed down, Max said, “I’m sorry I blew up there. It’s just that—that—” he paused, at a rare loss for words, struggling to find whatever it was he wanted to say before he apparently found it. “You do know that being with you, like this, is what’s saved me in the first place, right?”

Neena closed their eye, suppressing the need to groan. “Plenty of times by now.”

“I don’t mean just that… this relationship we have was my saving grace. Although it was. But to be honest, the realization, the proof that, someone as beautiful and as wonderful as you are could ever want someone like me, well, it—” he laughed, a slightly nervous, almost manic sound. “it’s opened me up to a world of possibilities. None of which included my old self, my old life, the one that was eating me whole.”

Neena could feel a smile that they could hardly contain breaking across their face. They fought it off, having to look away from Max. As they did, they caught sight of their reflection in the window, past their desk, surrounded by a black sea of nothing and dazzling starlight.

Naked, one-eyed, sitting in the lap of their bound boyfriend. If their old self could see them now, Neena knew they would be at least disappointed and shocked. As for right now, though, all Neena really felt was strangely contented. For what felt like it might have been the first time in their adult life. 

Breaking their line of sight on the reflection, Neena looked back down at their aforementioned tied up boyfriend and felt themselves make the self-conscious gesture with their hand, grazing the eyepatch before they lowered it. “You don’t know what you build your image of yourself based on, until you lose it, is all.”

“Are you talking about what it’s like to be with me, or are we just talking about the eye?” When Neena took in a sharp intake of breath, he looked like he recognized something in their face, something that made him nod as though they had given him a definitive answer. “Because, how you feel about being with me is something you’ll have to cope with. But I have at least a little illumination on how I feel about how you look, I think I at least have a right to my own feelings on the matter.” The fire in Max’s eyes surprised them as he spoke again. “Neena, your injury doesn’t make you less attractive to me. If anything, the fact that you’re willing to do that for _ little old me _ was in truth quite the ego boost, once I woke up.” He grinned, sitting up further as he said, “And, you  _ do _ know that the missing eye makes you sexier, right?”

Neena almost gasped, made that self-conscious motion they were now used unintentionally making as they placed their hand over the eye patch that covered their non-intact eye. This time, as they did, they saw Max spasm, realized that he had tried to raise one of his—bound—hands up.

He made a pained sound, winced, and said, “I  _ do _ wish you would stop doing that. There is nothing, not a damn thing, on your face you ought to feel ashamed of; least of all in my presence.”

Instead of assenting, perhaps Max ought to have expected it, as Neena straightened up on his leg, crossing their arms over their chest. “I didn’t realize you could tell  _ me _ how to feel about myself.”

Max chuckled, losing some of that horrible tension. “Fair point, but it’s not about what you see in yourself. You can’t dictate how  _ I  _ feel about you.”

Neena tapped their jaw, then “accidentally” ground their ass into his hips. “You underestimate my abilities as your Captain, and as a top.”

Max leaned back in his chair, his nostrils flaring. An infuriatingly pleased look on his face, for someone who was bound, supposed to be at their mercy. “I’ve learned that it’s in my best interests to allow Neena Castillo—” he paused, correcting himself. “ _ Captain  _ Neena Castillo of the outlaw ship,  _ The Unreliable _ , do as they please.”

Neena’s body had felt on fire, as though the heat they had been feeling earlier had returned in full force. They leaned forward, moving as though they were about to kiss him. When he moved, ready to kiss them back, Neena reached, grabbing onto the collar of his cassock, yanking his head back.

Max groaned. “Oh,  _ Neena _ —”

They sat up on his lap, then fell forward, plunging against the bared expanse of his neck beyond the barrier of his collar. His groans were rich and loud, rumbling out of his throat as Neena touched his naked skin. Acting on pure impulse and desire, Neena pressed their mouth against his adam’s apple, pursing their lips against it as they felt the shivering vibrations that pulsed through him. A reaction so potent and thrilling in their own body that they could almost taste it.

He made a groan, muffled with his head thrown back, but one that Neena could feel against their mouth. They lapped at his skin, tracing the subtle lines of cartilage and sinew, spread their tongue over the shape of his adam’s apple, where Neena could taste a faint lingering remnants of his cologne even under the enticing, familiar taste of his sweat and skin. They kissed their way down, stopping at the hollow of his throat. They waited, could feel his anticipation spreading through him. Envisioned that it was all spreading, pooling in his head, his chest. His groin. 

Neena sank in closer, taking in a deep breath from the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He smelled so sweet, so heady, that his skin almost begged to have a bite taken out of it, like a fresh Earth apple— 

Neena took in a deep breath then started to kiss. Then, without warning, they opened their mouth, teasing his skin with the tips of their teeth. They could feel the turn in him, the moment when Max—all of him—was anticipating it. And Neena didn’t give it to him, not easily. Not when they were feeling as downright nasty as they felt in that moment.

As Neena ceaselessly kissed the delicious hint of his exposed skin that was behind and peeked above the prison of his collar, they could feel him, grunting, moaning, and gyrating. It felt like he was desperate to press himself to them, helpless.

It was exactly where they wanted him to be. 

Neena deeply kissed his neck, then pursed, beginning to suck on him.

Max moaned, his head thrown completely back, thrusting his body helplessly as Neena sucked gently. Without thinking about it, they started to run their hands over his chest, taking in the feeling again of his body dressed in the once-alienating vestments. Neena usually didn’t make it a point to want to leave a mark—at least, before they had met Max—but with him they knew that he relished the possibility of them leaving a mark on him. And, fuck, he tasted as good as he looked. So Neena sucked on his skin, alternating with their teeth as their greediness overwhelmed them, like he was a Rizzo TaffyPop!, and they were eager to get to the center.

As Neena removed their lips—they had done it for so long that their lips were starting to get numb—Max made a shuddering whimper, but was helpless as Neena sat up to examine their handiwork as a blossom of bruised flesh budded to life where they had sucked and bit. As they watched the beautiful tawny color of his skin darken, Neena was astonished to realize that the color of the bruising seemed to accent the color of his vestments. 

And odd, obscene thought occurred to Neena as they stared at the beautiful, possessive mark they had created.  _ What if I were to make it so that everywhere his cassock is, I leave a bruise? _

So swept up in the lust-addled thoughts, Neena didn’t expect Max to speak up. “Law damn it, you really love me in a compromised position.”

Neena chuckled, dragging their gaze up from the sweet violence they had left on their ship’s Counselor. “You call this compromised?” They stared at him, waiting until the man dropped his head back down, could meet their gaze. Saw the dazzling show of blatant desire, the unfolding umbra of his pupils. “I could suspend you in ropes, use your dick and ass as my plaything. Make you give me head until all the blood rushes to your head, until you can’t keep an erection no matter  _ how _ you feel.”

Neena meant it as somewhat of a test, see what they could get away with with him, until he gave up, looked disgusted or horrified.

But Max’s mouth broadened, spreading into a grin that Neena never saw, outside of the private time he spent with them. “Do you think we could do that? In here?”

Neena, stunned by how horny the reaction left them, had to shake their head to force the image—Max, suspended and trapped in ropes, like the too-willing prisoner of some cold, unfeeling spider’s web—out of their head. Planting a grin on their face, Neena said, “Maybe. Once we finish doing Welles-y’s chores.” To accentuate that point, Neena brushed their nails over his freshly shaven cheek. Revealed in the way his grin twitched. 

There was nothing but pure, almost desperate honesty in him as Max almost repeated his earlier question, “You can do that for me?”

_ For me.  _ As though such a dark fantasy was a gift for Neena to give to him.

Neena’s eyes dragged down, taking all of him, all of their boyfriend— _ their man _ , from the top of his head down to his chest. Bruise-lipped, love bitten, with his pupils so dilated that if Neena had not already memorized the beauty of his eyes they could have been forgiven for believing that his eyes were black.

So Neena told him the truth, as they wove their fingers against the embroidered texture of the collar of his vestments, dragging their fingers down, to the first button of the neat line that formed the front of his cassock. “I’d do anything for  _ you _ .”

He liked that—the sight of the joy on his face from that, for once, frank answer, made Neena squirm on him. And that was when they realized that if Max had ever lost the point of this situation that his dick had decided to make a return to the party. And Neena was far from some impassioned viewer; they gave an excited little squeal and they ground against his crotch.

Max moaned, throwing his head back as he thrust up to meet them. “Fuck, C-captain—Neena, I feel like I’m going to burst.”

Neena understood the sentiment, but there was still something they needed, wanted, to do. Groaning, Neena caught their fingers in the top button of his vestment. Relished, in spite of their painful eagerness, the surprised choke that Max made at the touch. 

Then, he said, “Weren’t you the one who told me that you didn’t wait to take the fucking wrapping paper off of a present?”

God, what a treasure Maximillion DeSoto was. 

And Neena decided to treat him like one; even if they were doing it in a frenzy. Neena unbuttoned each one of the dark little discs that went down the center of his chest, revealing a peek of skin and not some undershirt, as Max once would have worn, when he had called himself Vicar Max. Or Vicar Maximillion, if you wanted to be pedantic about it. Neena pulled the buttons loose, turning the cassock into barely anything more than lingerie, what it covered more meaning to stimulate the imagination than to provide anything approaching modesty.

His chest heaved as Neena pulled his cassock unbuttoned, pushing clothing away from skin that had been untouched by anyone before his Captain had absolutely defiled him. 

He sounded out of breath when he spoke, as though he had been running. “I don’t think… I can stand it… much longer.”

And that was saying something, for a man who had experienced long hours spent in one of their beds, so aroused that it was an almost meditative time that bordered on pain.

Still, it was always good to hear when someone had been given more than satisfactory service. 

Neena pushed the cassock open, splayed its edges against the sides of his torso so that he truly did look like an opened present. Neena ran their hands down his exposed chest, taking joy in pinching the beautiful copper of his nipples, making him let out a really delicious moan, feeling the hard lines of his torso, flicking their thumb over the soft pout of his belly. 

Everything in Neena knew what they wanted to do, even as their desire for him and the things they wished they had the energy for still, burnt deep. At the moment, all Neena wanted to do was give this tied up bucking bronco a ride neither of them would soon forget. 

As Neena sat up, not willing to get off of him again, Max asked, “What are you—”

He didn’t get that question fully out as Neena reached down, pulling the zipper of his trousers down, then followed by snapping the button loose. If Neena would have expected Max to sound relieved, they would have been disappointed as the man-made a pained groan, throwing his head back as he numbly cried out Neena’s name.

When they said it, Neena could hear that their pant had crept into their voice. “Oh, yes.”

Where Max found the presence of mind to think of it, let alone say it, Neena almost admired. “Condoms—we’re out, have some in my room, I think—”

Neena reached up, pressing her fingers to his lips until he stopped talking. “I wasn’t planning on needing any, anyway.” That made Max’s eyes widen, and Neena grinned in response. “I think it’s about time, don’t you think?”  _ Oh, hell yes it was. _

They had done everything, or damn near what felt like it should have been, except one thing that Neena had fought off, because of the degree of intimacy it entailed. And somehow, they got the impression that that was something that he was well aware of as well. 

But his concern, while unwanted, was reasonable. Max’s lips parted and he gazed at them. “But without one, I run the risk of—”

Not that they were overly compelled by his denials, as the memory of being pounded by his uncovered cock back in Fallbrook felt too fresh in their memory. Neena silenced him this time by sitting up, pulling his trousers down his thighs. They found it, the proof that if anything, Max was alive with excitement at the prospect of what Neena was intending. Cupping Max’s dick, Neena looked into his eyes and asked the question they always did whenever they strode into the territory of something that Max might not have been okay with. 

“Tell me you want me to ride you, big guy.” They couldn’t stop the smile that grew on their face as the prospect of it, doing something they had sworn to never do with someone, became something they wanted badly. “Tell me how bad you want me to take your nice, big dick,” Neena slid their hand down him, from the thick head down to the base. “deep inside of me, no barriers.”

Max’s mouth fell open, and Neena could see the answer in his eyes before he said a word. “I want that so bad,” he admitted, a delicious trail of sweat coursing down the side of his face like sweet honey from a broken comb. “I want to be in you so,  _ so much _ right now.”

In spite of their situation, Neena wanted to laugh a little at the realization, that his wordiness had failed him like it always did when he was turned on, or angry. Of course, given the choice Neena much preferred it when Max was in the more “loving” of the two.

So, with no more delay, Neena was excited to pull his dick back into place and looked into his eyes as they straddled him with their knees shoved between the chair’s armrests and Max’s thighs. They were about to just sink down on him without another word when it came out of them, overcome with emotion. 

They blurted out, “You know I love you, don’t you?”

Max blinked, his surprise clear on his face. But as soon as the look appeared, it disappeared as a pleased look took its place. “Oh, is that so? I thought we’ve been doing this because we were  _ friends _ .”

Neena, still holding Max’s dick in their hand, glared at him. “Careful now. Being petty isn’t a good look for a man who’s tied up with half of his clothes ripped off.”

Infuriatingly, Max let out a chuckle as he tossed his head back slightly, giving them a knowing leer. “That was the  _ point _ of all of this. But, I mean, even then—was that supposed to be some kind of a big shock, it’s something I’ve known for, what, more than half of the time we’ve known each other for—”

Not able to take Max’s smugness, Neena did the only thing they could do to stop him from rubbing this in their face. Sliding into position, Neena brought Max’s dick up straight, then slid onto it. The groan that came from Neena was quickly met with one from Max. He threw his head back again, thrusting his hips up to try to press as much of himself as he could into them. 

Neena was wet, eager, and they rode him, jutting their hips up and down as they drank in the feeling of Max’s skin, so welcoming and hard, being embraced by all of them. 

It seemed that Neena wasn’t the only one who was moved by this first time they had spent truly skin to skin on purpose as Max breathed hard, staring them in their remaining eye. As Neena took a more leisurely lick up and down him, Max let out a long, obscenely loud groan. 

“You feel so right,” Max moaned. “love you so fucking much, baby.”

Neena moaned in response, then leaned forward, sinking as much of him as they could inside of them, wrapping their hands around his shoulders, grabbing onto his back. “I love you, too,” they said, dark, sweet joy giving voice to a vulnerability Neena had difficulty voicing in any other situation.

He felt so good like this, at their mercy but so strong and masculine inside of them, covered in Neena’s hot desire for him, dressed like a debased holy man, declaring his love for them. 

Neena re-positioned themselves, sinking until they were pressed against his torso, their sweat-slick bodies sticking and sliding, grabbing onto the back of his neck, making unintentional eye contact. Their gaze stuck to his blooming, bright galaxy of greens. Knew that every emotion they could see in his eyes was because of them.

The pace was faster like this, bucking, with more of him kept inside of them, wanting to enjoy the sensation of Max inside of them for as much and as long as they could. They sat up, looking into his hazing eyes as long as they could manage, until Neena fell a victim to their own delicious torture. Neena pitched forward, their face planting against the side of his head, hands groping, finding fresh purchase first at the arm rests of their poor, overtaxed chair, then fell down, groping and grabbing onto Max’s hips.

Neena rode in a wild delirium, their cries and moans melting into Max’s, both crooning and whispering dirty, profane, loving things as they fucked with barely a break in rhythm. 

It was so good, _ too  _ good, and Neena rose their way to an orgasm that came as an almost unwanted interloper in the hot, engulfing wave of experience, feeling so good that they almost forgot that Max wasn’t a part of them, riding the same experience as they were.

Then Max began to repeat, “I’m gonna go, need to cum.” As Neena, regretfully, slipped off, Max surprised them by shooting his head forward, finding their lips with his own. When he broke away, in a hoarse voice, Max threw his head back, biting out, “You turn me on too much. Help me—then untie me.”

Neena followed his broken instruction, pulling off of him. In spite of the weakness in their legs, caused by forcing their body so that they were spread open on top of him, they dropped off of him, kneeling in front of Max.

Max was wet, all of him, straining and helpless, mouth hung open, hair fallen all over his head in an insane bed head for a man who had once kept himself as clean and austere as possible. And then there was his dick, irresistible as it stood up, naked and soaked in Neena, pulsatingly big. 

If Neena earlier had been eager to tease and play, now they were greedy with a need for a fresh orgasm of their own as well as to see their hapless, large boyfriend cum with no ability to do it for himself. They popped him into their mouth, their hand thoughtlessly dropped between their legs, stroking their clit in their own helpless frenzy.

He tasted so profane and somehow sweetly intimate, coated in them and his own heady lust. In spite of their own fresh desperation, one look; with Max half-buried in their throat and all of him straining up off his chair as far as he could go, left Neena wishing they could watch him do this forever. 

But Max let out a broken cry, and Neena knew without hearing him have to say it that he had met his end. They felt him cum in their mouth, a smaller amount than he had let out before, given the fact that he had already cum that night. But his reaction was far from any sort of a let down, bucking his hips, hard, crying until it sounded like he had lost his mind.

Neena watched Max cum, his still hard dick in their mouth. As he came down, with barely a moment of break, he demanded, hoarsely, “Untie me, do it now.”

Neena rose up to their feet, doing as he said as they inhaled all of him, fresh from an orgasm, panting, his whole body heaving. As they fumbled the cord loose, they expected him to have to recover, from having his wrists bound up. What they didn’t expect was him reaching up, grabbing onto their back, almost making Neena trip back in surprise. 

Chuckling an odd, rusty-sounding laugh, Max said, “You did so good, I’ll be thinking about this every night for a long time. Let me show you—” he didn’t finish that thought, surprising Neena anew as he reached up, grabbing onto the back of Neena’s head, forcing them close as he deeply kissed them, sharing the taste of his cum, making the surprise of that action send a shockwave of hunger through them. 

They were falling against him, being deeply tongue-kissed by the man they had just ridden and sucked on until they were rocking against him, whimpering. Freshly helpless after spending so long in overt control. 

They felt him picking them up as he stood up, eliciting a surprised squeal from Neena. Expecting him to carry them to the bed they were surprised when he laid them down on the metal ground, making them yelp at the sudden feel of the cold on their back, raising their knees up from the shock.

Crouched at their feet, Max looked irresistible, a true mess with his body, from his neck to his hips exposed in his undone vestments, a cocky smirk resting in an oddly fitting look on his far too appealing face. “How good do you taste, after you’ve loved me?” 

Neena let out a strangled sound, helpless to watch as the man who was supposed to have been at their mercy licked his lips in an obscene tease before he made good on it, ducking forward on his knees, like he was about to start his worship before his fallen object of worship, his clothes fitting half-off of his body. As he did, it seemed that his trousers had finally met the end of their usefulness for him, as Max paused, growling as he yanked them off of his knees. As Neena watched him tearing them off of his body, he seemed to feel their eye on him as he looked up, his overbright eyes catching hold of Neena’s, understanding seemed to come over him. Max’s lips turned up into a lazy grin as he sat up on his naked legs, hands grabbing onto either side of his opened cassock, then slowly pulled it off of his shoulders, exposing his hard dad body. 

Neena whimpered, watching their irresistible ex-Ship’s Vicar peel his clothes off, until all he was wearing was that incorrigible smile, tossing his old cassock to the side. Bared, Neena realized that he was now nude, while Neena was still wearing their combat boots.

The sight of him, crouched between their legs, left Neena shuddering as their need to cum returned in full force. When he reached forward, laying one of his still very warm hands from where he had been tied up, resting it on Neena’s lightly closed thighs, they felt sweet anticipation rushing through them, as hot as a drug in their veins. 

Max said, “Why don’t you let me see what I’ve got to look forward to?” Their thighs fell open, and Neena stared at his face as Max gave them an almost affectionate smile before he turned his attention to their pussy. “Like sweet fruit.” 

Before Neena could ask him what that was supposed to mean, Max leaned forward and down, burying his face into them, tongue kissing the part of Neena that most needed his attention. He felt amazing, and as always, it seemed as though Max had gotten better, more skilled since the last time he had eaten them out. A fast, passionate learner—something that Neena had never thought would one day become a major appeal in the kind of person that Neena could, sometimes, see themselves being with for a long, long time, once the colonists aboard  _ The Hope _ were saved.

But that wasn’t the first thing on their mind at the moment. Neena let the experience wash over them, bucking and whimpering on their floor. As they sprawled out back, buried so deep inside of the fresh build-up to their orgasm that Neena almost thought that they would cum far, far too quickly to really take in the experience. They forced themselves to sit up on their elbows, drink in the now familiar but unendingly beautiful sight of Max sucking and licking their pussy. 

As though sensing that Neena was watching him, Max’s eyes rose, meeting Neena’s own. He didn’t stop, in the middle of his tongue lapping its way around the stiff, aching nub of Neena’s clit, but his eyes seemed to promise them something, even as Neena began to believe that they were nearing the end of their stamina and would be soon be cumming.

He sank back, and as Neena let out a guttural beg, Max answered that by plunging his index and middle finger of his right hands inside of them, starting with an almost tender stroke before he pulled out and, smoothly, slammed inside of their pussy. 

Neena moaned, both grateful and depairing in the face of a reprieve from the ceaseless attention of his mouth. Their body reacted, almost free of their choice, sinking back onto him as he pressed, squirmed, making them feel full and invaded. 

Adjusting to the rough pleasure, Neena whimpered, watching Max work in a daze, barely aware that he had sunk up their body, plunging his fingers in them until he hovered his mouth over their chest, wrapping his mouth around one of Neena’s painfully hard nipples. 

Neena bucked up and down, realizing that Max had let them drive their own pleasure on his hand, grateful, as painfully aroused as they were, that they weren’t being left numbed. He let go of the nipple he had been sucking on, then turned his attention to its pair, greedily sucking as Neena thrust up on his fingers.

He sucked, making a wonderfully lewd  _ popping _ sound that worked with the soft, sucking sounds of him fucking Neena with his hand as he pulled loose. When he spoke, Max’s words were almost ignored as Neena flung their head back, riding the waves of pleasure. 

“Come here.” They missed Max slipping further up their body, never once removing his fingers, shocking them as he pressed his lips to theirs, shoving his tongue into their mouth.

Neena bucked, humping up and off the ground in abandon, overwhelmed with the covering, invasive presence of Max fucking them and kissing them. He tasted of their body, the most primal taste he could have, and somewhere in the back of Neena’s mind they realized that they must still taste of him.

If it bothered Max, Neena would have been shocked as he seemed to be hungrily devouring their mouth, a mirroring of how he had lapped at them earlier. Max seemed to almost suck the breath out of them, as if sensing their increasing desperation to cum, to break free from the unending tension, started to fuck them in earnest, strong, grunting thrusts that pounded Neena against the ground.

The orgasm broke free in Neena, making them writhe, gasp for breath as they clung to him. 

As they came down, they realized that Max had toned down his aggressiveness, was kissing their neck, his fingers now sliding, almost contedely, against their clit and spasming opening. 

Neena dropped their head back, not willing to come back down yet; at least, not quite yet. 

Almost falling asleep, splayed out on the ground, a wet, cooked noodle beneath their boyfriend, Neena let out a shriek as they felt Max suck on their neck.

Gasping, Neena kicked, slamming their hands onto the ground, their oversensitized body shrieking for mercy, even as their pussy spread hot, fresh tension through all of them. Max didn’t cease suckling, lush mouth tight on their neck, bruising with delicious mercilessness. Then Neena realized what he was doing, and reached up, blindly grabbing for his head and neck, whimpering. 

When Max pulled away with a soft sucking noise, Neena was left, a simpering, wet mess beneath him as he sat up, hovering over their body. 

Neena gazed at him, feeling the sweet, bruising welt he had left on their neck, left them clenching and spasming. Somehow they found the presence of mind to ask, “So, had fun with your… revenge?”

Max’s lips were truly bruised, deliciously thick and lewd as he licked them fresh. “I think it’s fair to say we both had fun, don’t you think?”

Neena laughed, the sound ending in a shudder as their nudity, the cold of the metal ground, and the lack of Max’s body on theirs, overcame them. “Think you could help me up? I feel like whatever a pack of Canids leave behind once they’re done devouring it.”

Max laughed, the sound rich, sincere, sounding surprised. “You look much better this way, I would argue.” Still, he complied, getting to his knees and picking them up before Neena found some of their earlier strength, forcing him to let them stand on their own feet. 

Neena shivered, their arms wrapping around their body in spite of the presence of Max’s arm on their shoulder, half-pressing them against him. “What do you think are the odds I can get ADA to turn the heat up, in the rooms at least?”

As Max guided them back to the bed and its very rumpled bedspread, he replied, “I don’t know if the reason for the jump in temperature would go over well with the A.I.” He guided them to the top, letting Neena drop their head back onto their pillow. When Neena finally pulled their head up, looked at the man who was standing over the bed, smiling a strangely content smile at them, he said, “Think we both need a shower. Again.”

Neena groaned. “Love, can we wait like, a minute, maybe more?” They dramatically threw their head back. “Who knows what we might still do tonight? Why wash up when we’re just gonna get dirty again?”

He seemed to be snorting back a laugh, and as Neena raised their head back to look at him, they watched as Max shook his head at them. “I do find your liberal estimations of my stamina to be a compliment, but I think I’m done for a bit.” He paused, a thoughtful expression crossing his face before he added, “Give me an hour, at least.”

That made Neena laugh. “Fuck. We have anything else to do?”

He barely hesitated before he added, “I think we should consider stepping out of this room sometime. Just because we leave doesn’t mean that we won’t return, I hope you understand.” 

Neena groaned, dropping their head back on the pillow. “Oh, for f… Max, can you be  _ not Max _ for like, five seconds?” It was a true struggle, to deal with the mature grown-up who wanted  _ Neena _ to be a mature grown-up.

Ignoring what had become a near familiar refrain, Max sighed, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “A nice shower, say hello to the others…” he paused before he added, “unless you don’t care, finally, that what we’re obviously doing in here—”

Neena waved their arm limply. “Come on, I think they can guess what’s going on?” Max was so quiet that Neena sat up and had to look at his face, found that he was staring at them, in shock. “What?”

He blinked, shrugging. “Oh, don’t mind me _ ,  _ I was just wondering if I actually passed out and I’m just imagining you talking sense for once.” When Neena glared and got ready to kick him, Max flinched back, his hands held up defensively. “By all means let’s stop pretending that we’re having an endless series of meetings, meditations, massages, therapy…”

Neena rolled their eyes, giving him an eventually ineffectual kick. “Can’t we shut up about that for one night? If we know what we have, why do we have to go out there and parade it around for everyone else?”  _ So everyone else can shove my face in this. _

Mac held his hands out, a, “can you help me?” look on his face. “What do you want from me? We’re gonna have to come out about this at some point.” It was Max’s turn to roll his eyes. “But I have better things to do than trying to beat myself up against an immovable wall.”

Already guessing where this was going, Neena grumpily pulled some of their loose bedspread up, clutching it with their arms. “Come on, Maxy my love, let me relax for a night.”

That was the final straw for the man, who scooted up to their side, his hands on either side of them as he propped himself up, waiting until Neena turned to look up at him. Giving them an unpitying look with his eyebrow cocked, Max said, “We’ve been  _ relaxing  _ for a few days now. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve officially healed up, as of a few days ago.” When Neena just stared at him, eyes begging, he just stared back and said, “Come now, I think it’s safe to say that at this point we’re past  _ healing _ .”

Neena took a calculated risk, dipping back in the pity that they had garnered with their injury. “Oh, I don’t know. My eye really hurts, still—”

Max surprised them anew, reaching forward, and, before Neena could stop him, he pushed the patch covering their damaged eye aside. Neena flinched, reaching up to try to put it back in place.

Before they could, Max brushed his rough fingertips along the top of their cheekbone. His eyes were warm, openly loving as he looked at the scar tissue covering what used to once be Neena’s left eye.

Unexpectedly, Neena felt some emotion trap in the back of their throat as they got the feeling for the first time since their last day on Fallbrook that they were normal, or were at least as appealing to Max as they had once felt. Then Neena let out a low, humorless chuckle, raising their hand up to the eyepatch to slide it back into place, which Max allowed. “I’d almost think you prefer me like this.”

He smirked, his eyelids half-closing over his eyes. “And would that be so wrong? You look so  _ dangerous _ now. Makes me… so easily excitable.”

Neena cleared their throat, hoping that their face wasn’t glowing red in embarrassment. Or excitement. “What the rush with getting back to things? We almost lost everything, it feels like just yesterday.” 

Max blinked, his eyes soft, warm. “What, gonna throw in the towel now? We only have one more stop, one more adventure, then we’ll be heroes. We can put all of those bad memories behind us. We can be the heroes Halcyon does or doesn’t want, it won’t matter. But we’re going to have each other.”

Neena laughed, throwing their arm over their face. As they wound down, almost high on the cocktail of Max’s continued close proximity as well as still being in their afterglow, they said, “I don’t even know where we  _ go  _ after this. What’ll happen to all of us.”

Max was quiet, which drew Neena’s gaze back to him. They found him with a soft, almost sad look on his face. He seemed to hesitate before he asked, “Does that worry you?”

Neena rolled their eyes. “Uh uh. You’re not reading my mind, not again.” When Max didn’t say anything, Neena glanced back at him, found that his gentle expression had turned the slightest censorious. “Come on, you don’t need to worry about everything I do and feel.”

He smirked, sliding closer to them, until Neena thought he was going to kiss them. “What part of, “I worship you” does not compute?” When Neena let out a slightly nervous, but more self conscious titter, he leaned in closer, pressing a soft kiss onto Neena’s bottom lip. “It’s a pleasure to try to get into that head of yours. And I do have some interest in wondering what you plan to do, once our “chores” are done with Welles.”

Their lips parted, and almost feeling they were bathing in the full weight of Max’s openly admitted devotion to them, Neena confessed the thought that had been plaguing them, non-stop since they realized that they had started to develop feelings for the sad, broken people that they had plucked from Halcyon. “What if it’s not the same?” Max looked at them inquisitively, and Neena continued, an unintentional stutter creeping into their voice. “What if—I lose one of you?”

“Like, one of us dies?”

Neena finally pushed him back, and Max took the hint, sitting up, giving them a blessed little pillow of space. Rubbing at their suddenly very overhot face, Neena said, “I’ve never had anyone who cared about me, when it’s not about my family’s money or something they could get from me.” They lost their voice there, had to struggle to find the next words, their mouth hung open. They couldn’t look at him as they admitted it, words that they knew that he already knew, but were words that Neena could now recognize as ones that they had to speak. “What if at the end of this, everyone goes our separate ways?”

Max, now sitting on the edge of the bed with a thoughtful expression on his face, seemed to quietly process this, resting his chin thoughtfully on the cradle of his hand. Finally, he found the words he wanted to speak, turning to look at his Captain, near-nude, so very vulnerable on their bed. “You think that any of us would leave you, after all we’ve gone through, as soon as we save the colonists?” 

Neena shuddered out a humorless chuckle, raising their hand up to brush aside some of their fallen hair away from their face. “I mean—not immediately. But eventually, they’re gonna go.” Neena’s gaze was drawn away from the nude man who sat on the edge of their bed, found that their eye had stuck to the frenetically-moving symbol of their shared past, Moonman waving his arms back and forth, a corporate smile drawn on his dark little lips. “I’ll be back to square one.”

Max sighed, leaning further back into the bed. “Well, of course eventually they’re gonna  _ leave. _ Can’t keep them imprisoned, after all. And, you don’t exactly pay a living wave, to boot.” When Neena didn’t take that bait, still staring at Moonman as if they meant to find an answer with it, somehow, Max added, “Come on, Neena, you’re not Peter Pan and they are not your Lost Boys. Eventually some of them are going to grow up. But they’re not going to just forget about you. There’s the special awkwardness of messaging, overlong catch up conversations and visits, Nonspecific Holiday cards, being invited to events like weddings…” He trailed off.

Whether or not he had sensed the implication in that word he had trailed off on, Neena wasn’t sure. But it sent a cascade of weird thoughts through their head—were  _ they _ going to be that annoying couple who sent out invitations to some overpriced, overhyped ceremony, once Neena had properly broken underneath the compounding weight of relationship expectations, no matter how gently teased, as well as societal— 

Max was snapping his fingers, drawing Neena’s gaze back to him. “Hey, you look like you have a lot on your mind right now.”

Neena almost blurted it out, the feeling inside of them was like a tickle in the back of their throat that demanded to be let loose. “Do you ever want to, uh, leave?”

He answered quickly, the hint of humor in his voice, for once, almost undoing Neena with creeping embarrassment. “Everyone might be looking for something, but I came here to look for a place to call home. And I think I found it here, with you. So, no, unless we have some catastrophic falling out, I certainly don’t  _ anticipate _ leaving.”

Even though Neena would have almost preferred Max to throw his feelings out in an emotional break, they couldn’t help but admire the fully grown-up way he spoke the truth, unvarnished and almost analytically. And somehow, it made the honesty of what he said feel all the more potent. 

Neena rose a hand up, rubbing the heat that bloomed in their cheeks. “You’re making this almost a little too easy, you know, DeSoto."

Max turned, cocking his eyebrow and giving them a strangely dazzling smile. “Is this really supposed to be hard,  _ Captain Castillo?  _ Can’t we just enjoy each other. Not have every aspect of our lives turn into a trash fire?”

Neena grinned back at him, sliding back so that they laid against the wall. “Come on now, you know I’m a trash fire. Don’t go talking about them like they’re always a bad thing.”

Max laughed, shaking his head as he looked away. “Sweet verity, it’s almost always a pleasure, but a man of my advancing age can’t stand so much undue stress like this.”

That made Neena leap across the bed, clambering onto his back and those warm, naked shoulders. “If you were so worried about stress, you wouldn’t pull me to a bedroom, like you did yester—”

What they said was cut off as Max drew them against him tighter, turning his face so that he could press an engulfing, heavy kiss on their lips before he drew away. “Come now, it’s not  _ always _ a virtue to be overly honest.”

Recalling how he had once said a similar thing—to himself—it was Neena's turn to cock their eyebrow at him, not fighting the need they had to trail their hand up his chest, teasing the sparse wisps of his chest hair. “So I’ve been told.” They sighed, then fell against him anew. “Think this last job for old Welles is gonna go smoothly, so we can do something different for a change?”

Max snorted. “Like what, stage a coup with the Board?”

Neena knocked into him, the false anger they tried to summon to punish him refusing to surface. “I would just give anything to, finally, put my past behind me.” 

Max turned slightly and found Neena’s right hand, taking it in his larger own as he rose it to his lips, placing an oddly chaste kiss on the half-closed fist. “There’s always time for a first,” he admitted. “a job that  _ doesn’t _ go off the deep end, or end in one of us having to deal with a hangry cannibal family…” 

It was Neena’s turn to cut him off, reaching up and over to find his mouth, resume kissing him as if he were a lucky charm that would let that wish come true if only they could love him enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. It ends on cheesecake. Really long, wordy cheesecake.
> 
> Have any complaints? No, I didn't think so. I mean, about the cheesecake. There might be problems with the story (If I focused on it, I could find some myself, I know) but hell, I played to the crowd here for the end. I mean, unless this isn't what you're here for. If that's the case, I have just one question to ask you--what the hell /are/ you here for?
> 
> Okay, it's a little emotional, I've been uploading this for a long time now (I honestly didn't realize HOW many weeks it was going to be when I started!) and this is fucking long. Like, super goddamn long. I don't think I'm capable of making stuff that isn't overlong, queer in some way, and super angsty. Mmm, I heard 200k word fics are just lovely when they're in season like this. The real question is: why can't I stop writing these? And why, with my debt-laden English degree, can I find a way to make money off of this mess?
> 
> Ay yiy yiy.
> 
> I don't know, do I use this space to ask what you thought of this? I'm 200k deep here, kids, I have to tell you: all points this far seem to point to batshit crazy. The prognosis for me doesn't look optimistic. On the other hand, I think I have a deep love for you folks. Or at least, the thought of Vicar Max turning face makes me feel something close to love. Sometimes it's hard to disseminate either of those thoughts.
> 
> I'll be honest: I haven't shared anything this big since my days sharing my earlier writing on Wattpad, or, as I've heard it described from a "writing group" some time ago, "the platform for shit for teenagers." I mean, it's not NOT true, but it's not your community, you don't have the aneurisms and war stories from having to deal with the idiot platform holders, shut up and eat my c*** dudes. I now write overlong smut about other people's IPs.
> 
> I feel like I've gotten off track somewhere. Hi, this is the end of a story. 
> 
> If you've read this long and shorn your way through my rambling, self-aggrandizing, overly familiar, blatant grabs for your affections or at least bare interests, thank you for reading all of this. Even if you just read for the naughty parts (satan knows I've been there, and will return there again sometime). Oh, and if you want to tie your key to my kite for the next storm, I'll be uploading a new project beginning next Sunday. Check out my profile then to see the first official chapter, complete with a nice new fandom I'll be writing in (sorry folks, I think this might be all I have to say in this fandom, when it comes to writing anything. Can you blame me, folks, 200k.
> 
> You'll have to take a look at what I upload to see what I've written. Might be a good time ot subscribe ot me, if you're used to just seeing what's been uploaded recently on this fandom?
> 
> I'm gonna miss this place, at least for a bit. I'll see if I still have enough gas in the tank for this fandom, after all of the time I've spent on this. At any rate rate: hell yeah, I stand behind I wrote. And I'm pretty excited for what I have to share next Sunday.


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